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THE 

ETHICS OF THE DUST 



/ 



The Ethics of the Dust 



TEN LECTURES 



LITTLE HOUSEWIVES 



THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLIZATION 



JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. 

HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESS. >R OF FINE ART 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 



ERANTWOOD EDITION 



*py BIGHT *Q& 

MAY 20 1091 ) 



CHARLES E. MERRILL & CO., NEW YORK 

GEORGE ALLEN, LONDON AND ORPINGTON 

1 891 






SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 

Mr. George Allen 6^-s /o announce that Ruskin's Works will here- 
after be published in America by Messrs. Charles E. Merrill & Co., 
of New York, who will issue the only authorised editions. 



Copyright i8 9 t 
Charles E. Merrill & Co. 



DEDICATION. 



TO 

THE REAL LITTLE HOUSEWIVES 

WHOSE GENTLE LISTENING 

AND THOUGHTFUL QUESTIONING 

ENABLED THE WRITER TO WRITE THIS BOOK 

IT IS DEDICATED 

WITH HIS LOVE. 



Christmas, 1865. 



INTRODUCTION. 



IV IX R. RUSKIN was forty-six years old in 1865, 
when this book was written and published. 
It is composed of a series of lectures or discourses, 
interrupted by dialogues, actually delivered at a 
girls' school, in which, taking crystals as his text, 
the author drew from them such lessons, — lessons 
in life and conduct, — as their various characteristics 
might suggest to an ingenious mind fond of tracing 
analogies between the material and the moral uni- 
verse, and skilful in their application. It is not 
an introduction to mineralogy, but rather an ex- 
ceedingly discursive treatise, with illustrations from 
mineralogy, intended to awaken the minds of young 
readers, to show them some of the deeper meanings 
and relations of their pursuits, and to assist them 
in leading thoughtful and helpful lives. 



viii Introduction. 

The work is much more that of a familiar and 
friendly preacher than of a scientific teacher. In 
reading it, as is the case in reading most of Mr. 
Ruskin's books, one is reminded of his mother's 
intent, of which he tells us in Prceterita, to make 
a clergyman of him, so that he was " bred for ' the 
Church,' " and of his father's regret that, owing to 
his devotion to other things, " an amiable clergy- 
man was lost in him." " ' Yes,' said my father, 
'he would have been a bishop.'" In Ethics of the 
Dust we find the amiable clergyman and the good 
bishop playing their part, generally with becoming 
assurance, but now and then with a somewhat 
alarming heterodoxy and dangerous freedom of 
speech. 

In the preface to the second edition in 1877, 
Mr. Ruskin, with characteristic candour, and equally 
characteristic self-confidence, points out the respects 
in which the book failed of its intent, and directs 
the reader to the passages in it that seem to him 
most worthy of attention ; but he says nothing of 
the general conditions under which it was written, 
and which, in part at least, account alike for its 



Introduction. ix 

merits and its defects. His Prcetcrita unhappily 
stops short of the date of its composition, but some 
extracts from letters written about this period will 
serve to show the main course of his life and 
thoughts about this time. 

For some years life had gone wrong with him ; 
health and spirits had been broken ; the founda- 
tions of his early faith had been sapped ; the worth 
of much that he had believed and earnestly taught 
seemed not merely questionable but valueless ; 
England was dreary to him, and he had been living 
much abroad, mainly among the Alps in Savoy. 
In March 1863 nc wrote from Mornex : "The 
loneliness is very great, and the peace in which I 
am at present is only as if I had buried myself in 
a tuft of grass on a battlefield wet with blood, — for 
the cry of the earth about me is in my ears con- 
tinually if I do not lay my head to the very ground. 
The folly and horror of humanity enlarge to my 
eyes daily." 

July 29///, 1863. — "I am st iM ver y unwell, and 
tormented between the longing for rest and for 
lovely life, and the sense of the terrific call of 



x Introduction. 

human crime for resistance and of human misery 
for help, though it seems to me as the voice of a 
river of blood which can but sweep me down in 
the midst of its black clots, helpless. ... It is 
not theology that plagues me, but base injustice, 
selfishness, and utter scorn of thought or truth." 

In this mood our American war of regeneration 
seemed to him altogether horrible, and mad. " The 
miserablest idiocy of the whole has been your 
mixing up a fight for dominion (the most insolent 
and tyrannical and the worst conducted in all 
history), with a soi-disant fight for liberty. . . . 
This fight is partly for money, partly for vanity, 
partly for wild anarchy, and the Devil's cause and 
crown, everywhere." 

It would have been a vain attempt to try to set 
one right who was in such a black mood, and who 
was looking on the world with such bloodshot 
eyes. 

Chamouni, October 6th, 1863. — " I'm trying to 
get interested in geology again, and should be, 
thoroughly, if there were any chance of living long 
enough to make anything out. But, since my time, 



Introduction. xi 

crystallography alone has become a science for 
nine lives, — and there are seven new elements or 
so — names ending in um, — in chemistry. For the 
rest, I'm a little better." 

August 6t/i, 1864. — "I am busy with Greek and 
Egyptian mythology, and all sorts of problems in 
life and death; 'and your American business is so 
entirely horrible to me that somehow it cuts you 
off from all possibility of my telling you any of 
my thoughts.'' 

August i$t/i, 1865. — "Now you've done fighting 
I can talk to you a little again, but I've nothing to 
say. I keep the house pretty fairly in order, and 
keep my garden weeded, and the gardener never 
disturbs the birds : but the cats eat them. I am 
taking up mineralogy again as a pacific and 
unexciting study, only I can't do the confounded 
mathematics of their new books. I am at work 
on some botany of weeds, too, — and such like ; 
and am better on the whole than I was two years 
ago." 

October lot/i, 1865. — "I am working at mythology 
and geology, and conchology and chemistry, and 



xii Introduction, 

what else there is of the infinite and hopeless 

unknown to be stumbled among pleasantly, and I 

hope to get various little bits of work printed this 

Christmas." 

By Christmas The Ethics of the Dust was printed, 

and this was the date of its preface. It is full of 

the geology, the mythology, the mineralogy with 

which he had been busy, and betrays the lack 

of concentration and direction of his recent studies, 

while it shows some of his stumbles in the vast 

region of the infinite and hopeless unknown. " But 

how can you expect," he sorrowfully asks, in a 

letter on the nth of January, 1866, "a man living 

alone, and with everything gone cross to him, and 

not in any way having joy, even of the feeblest 

sort, but at the best only relief from pain, and 

that only when he is at work, to show anything 

but a cramped shadow of the little there is in 

him ? " 

C. E. N. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
1891. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



] HAVE seldom been more disappointed by the 
result of my best pains given to any of my 
books, than by the earnest request of my late 
publishers, after the opinion of the public had been 
taken on the c Ethics of the Dust,' that I would 
" write no more in dialogue ! " However, I bowed 
to public judgment in this matter at once, (know- 
ing also my inventive powers to be of the feeblest) ; 
but in reprinting the book, (at the prevailing 
request of my kind friend, Mr. Henry Willett,) 
I would pray the readers whom it may at first 
offend by its disconnected method, to examine, 
nevertheless, with care, the passages in which the 
principal speaker sums the conclusions of any 
dialogue : for these summaries were written as intro- 
ductions, for young people, to all that I have said 



xiv Preface, 

on the same matters in my larger books ; and on 
re-reading them, they satisfy me better, and seem 
to me calculated to be more generally useful, than 
anything else I have done of the kind. 

The summary of the contents of the old book, 
beginning, " You may at least earnestly believe," 
at p. 211, is thus the clearest exposition I have 
ever yet given of the general conditions under 
which the Personal Creative Power manifests itself 
in the forms of matter ; and the analysis of heathen 
conceptions of Deity, beginning at p. 213, and 
closing at p. 225, not only prefaces, but very 
nearly supersedes, all that in more lengthy terms 
I have since asserted, or pleaded for, in 'Aratra 
Pentelici' and the 'Queen of the Air.' 

And thus, however the book may fail in its inten- 
tion of suggesting new occupations or interests to its 
younger readers, I think it worth reprinting, in the 
way I have also reprinted ' Unto this Last,' — page 
for page ; that the students of my more advanced 
works may be able to refer to these as the original 
documents of them ; of which the most essential 
in this bcok are these following. 



Preface. xv 

I. The explanation of the baseness of the ava- 
ricious functions of the Lower Pthah, p. 52, with 
his beetle-gospel, p. 5 6, " that a nation can stand 
on its vices better than on its virtues," explains the 
main motive of all my books on Political Economy. 

II. The examination of the connexion between 
stupidity and crime, pp. 83 — 91, anticipated ail 
that I have had to urge in ' Fors Clavigera* 
against the commonly alleged excuse for public 
wickedness, — " They don't mean it — they don't 
know any better." 

III. The examination of the roots of Moral 
Power, pp. 142, 144, is a summary of what is 
afterwards developed with utmost care in my 
inaugural lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art 
to Morals ; compare in that lecture, §§ 8$ — 85, 
with the sentence in p. 143 of this book, — "No- 
thing is ever done so as really to please our 
Father, unless we would also have done it, though 
we had had no Father to know of it." 

This sentence, however, it must be observed, 
regards only the general conditions of action in 
the children of God, in consequence of which 



xvi Preface. 

it is foretold of them by Christ that they will 
say at the Judgment, " When saw we Thee ? " It 
does not refer to the distinct cases in which virtue 
consists in faith given to command, appearing to 
foolish human judgment inconsistent with the Moral 
Law, as in the sacrifice of Isaac ; nor to those in 
which any directly-given command requires nothing 
more of virtue than obedience. 

IV. The subsequent pages, 145 — 154, were written 
especially to check the dangerous impulses natural 
to the minds of many amiable young women, in the 
direction of narrow and selfish religious sentiment : 
and they contain, therefore, nearly everything which 
I believe it necessary that young people should be 
made to observe, respecting the errors of monastic life. 
But they in nowise enter on the reverse, or favour- 
able side ; of which indeed I did not, and as yet do 
not, feel myself able to speak with any decisive- 
ness ; the evidence on that side, as stated in the 
text, having " never yet been dispassionately ex- 
amined." 

V. The dialogue with Lucilla, beginning at p. 92, 
is, to my own fancy, the best bit of conversation 



Preface. xvii 

in the book ; and the issue of it, at p. 99, 
the most practically and immediately useful. For 
on the idea of the inevitable weakness and cor- 
ruption of human nature, has logically followed, 
in our daily life, the horrible creed of modern 
" Social science," that all social action must be 
scientifically founded on vicious impulses. But on 
the habit of measuring and reverencing our powers 
and talents that we may kindly use them, will be 
founded a true Social science, developing, by the 
employment of them, all the real powers and 
honourable feelings of the race. 

VI. Finally, the account given in the second and 
third lectures, of the real nature and marvellous- 
ness of the laws of crystallization, is necessary to 
the understanding of what farther teaching of the 
beauty of inorganic form I may be able to give, 
either in ' Deucalion,' or in my ' Elements of 
Drawing' I wish however that the second lecture 
had been made the beginning of the book ; and 
would fain now cancel the first altogether, which 
I perceive to be both obscure and dull. It was 
meant for a metaphorical description of the 

b 



*vm Pi'eface. 

pleasures and dangers in the kingdom of Mam- 
mon, or of worldly wealth ; its waters mixed with 
blood, its fruits entangled in thickets of trouble, 
and poisonous when gathered ; and the final cap- 
tivity of its inhabitants within frozen walls of 
cruelty and disdain. But the imagery is stupid and 
ineffective throughout ; and I retain this chapter only 
because I am resolved to leave no room for any 
one to say that I have withdrawn, as erroneous in 
principle, so much as a single sentence of any of 
my books written since i860. 

One licence taken in this book, however, though 
often permitted to essay-writers for the relief of 
their dulness, I never mean to take more, — the 
relation of composed metaphor as of actual dream, 
pp. 25 and 167. I assumed, it is true, that in 
these places the supposed dream would be easily 
seen to be an invention ; but must not any more, 
even under so transparent disguise, pretend to any 
share in the real powers of Vision possessed by 
great poets and true painters. 

Brantwood, 

\oth October, 1877. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 



The following lectures were really given, in 
substance, at a girls' school (far in the country) ; 
which, in the course of various experiments on 
the possibility of introducing some better prac- 
tice of drawing into the modern scheme of 
female education, I visited frequently enough 
to enable the children to regard me as a friend. 
The Lectures always fell more or less into the 
form of fragmentary answers to questions ; and 
they are allowed to retain that form, as, on the 
whole, likely to be more interesting than the 
symmetries of a continuous treatise. Many 
children (for the school was large) took part, at 
different times, in the conversations ; but I 



xx Preface. 

have endeavoured, without confusedly multi- 
plying the number of imaginary* speakers, to 
represent, as far as I could, the general tone of 
comment and enquiry among young people. 

It will be at once seen that these Lectures 
were not intended for an introduction to mine- 
ralogy. Their purpose was merely to awaken 
in the minds of young girls, who were ready 
to work earnestly and systematically, a vital 
interest in the subject of their study. No 
science can be learned in play ; but it is often 
possible, in play, to bring good fruit out of 
past labour, or show sufficient reasons for the 
labour of the future. 

The narrowness of this aim does not, 

* I do not mean, in saying ' imaginary,' that I have not 
permitted to myself, in several instances, the affectionate dis- 
courtesy of some reminiscence of personal character ; for which 
I must hope to be forgiven by my old pupils and their friends, 
as I could not otherwise have written the book at all. But 
only two sentences in all the dialogues, and the anecdote of 
' Dotty,' are literally ' historical.' 



Preface. xxi 

indeed, justify the absence of all reference 
to many important principles of structure, 
and many of the most interesting orders of 
minerals; but I felt it impossible to go far 
into detail without illustrations ; and if readers 
find this book useful, I may, perhaps, endeavour 
to supplement it by illustrated notes of 
the more interesting phenomena in separate 
groups of familiar minerals ; — flints of the chalk ; 
agates of the basalts ; and the fantastic and 
exquisitely beautiful varieties of the vein-ores 
of the two commonest metals, lead and iron. 
^But I have always found that the less we 
speak of our intentions, the more chance there 
is of our realising them f and this poor little 
book will sufficiently have done its work, 
for the present, if it engages any of its young 
readers in study which may enable them to 
despise it for its shortcomings. 

Denmark Hill, 

Christmas 1865. 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE 

I. The Valley of Diamonds . 


PAGE 
I 


II. The Pyramid Builders 


. 19 


III. The Crystal Life 


• 37 


IV. The Crystal Orders . 


• 57 


V. Crystal Virtues .... 


• 79 


VI. Crystal Quarrels 


• 105 


VII. Home Virtues .... 


. 127 


VIII. Crystal Caprice .... 


• 155 


IX. Crystal Sorrows 


• 177 


X. The Crystal Rest 


. 201 


Notes 


• 233 



PERSON^.. 



Old Lecturer (of incalculable age). 

Florrie, on astronomical evidence presumed to be aged 9. 

Isabel ,, 11. 

May ,, 11. 

Lily ,,12. 

Kathleen ,,14- 

Lucilla ,, 15. 

Violet ,,16. 

Dora (who has the keys and is housekeeper) . ,, 17. 

Egypt (so called from her dark eyes) . . . ,, 17. 

Sibyl (so called because she knows Latin) . ,, 18. 
Jessie (who somehow always makes the room 

look brighter when she is in it) . . . ,, 18. 
Mary (of whom everybody, including the Old 

Lecturer, is in great awe) . . . . ,,20. 



LECTURE I. 
THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS. 



LECTURE I. 
THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS. 

./ very idle ialk % by the dining-room fire t after raistn-and- 
almond-time. 

()1 " Lecturer; Florrie, Isabel, May, Lily, and Sibyl. 

Oli> LECTURER (L.). Come here, Isabel, and 
tell me what the make-believe was, this afternoon. 

ISABEL {arranging herself very primly on the foot- 
stool). Such a dreadful one ! Florrie and I were 
lost in the Valley of Diamonds. 

L. What ! Sindbad's, which nobody could get 
out of? 

Isabel. Yea ; but Florrie ami I got out of it. 

L. So I see. At least, I see you did ; but arc 
you sure Florrie did ? 

ISABEL. Quite sure. 

FLORRIE {putting her head round from behind 
L.'s sofa-cushion). Quite sure. {Disappears again) 

L. I think I could be made to feel surer about it. 

(FLORRIE reappears, gives L. a kiss, and again 
exit) 



4 The Valley of Diamonds. 

L. I suppose it's all right ; but how did you 
manage it ? 

Isabel. Well, you know, the eagle that took up 
Sindbad was very large — very, very large — the 
largest of all the eagles. 

L. How large were the others ? 

ISABEL. I don't quite know — they were so far 
off. But this one was, oh, so big ! and it had great 
wings, as wide as — twice over the ceiling. So, when 
it was picking up Sindbad, Florrie and I thought it 
wouldn't know if we got on its back too : so I got 
up first, and then I pulled up Florrie, and we put 
our arms round its neck and away it flew. 

L. But why did you want to get out of the 
valley ? and why haven't you brought me some 
diamonds ? 

Isabel. It was because of the serpents. I 
couldn't pick up even the least little bit of a dia- 
mond, I was so frightened. 

L. You should not have minded the serpents. 

Isabel. Oh, but suppose they had minded me ? 

L. We all of us mind you a little too much, 
Isabel, I'm afraid. 

ISABEL. No — no — no, indeed. 

L. I tell you what, Isabel — I don't believe either 
Sindbad, or Florrie, or you, ever were in the Valley 
of Diamonds. 



The Valley of Diamonds. 5 

Isabel. You naughty ! when I tell you we 
were ! 

L. Because you say you were frightened at the 
serpents-. 

Isabel. And wouldn't you have been ? 

L. Not at those serpents. Nobody who really 
goes into the valley is ever frightened at them — 
they are so beautiful. 

ISABEL {suddenly serious). But there's no real 
Valley of Diamonds, is there ? 

L. Yes, Isabel ; very real indeed. 

FLORRIE {reappearing). Oh, where ? Tell me 
about it. 

L. I cannot tell you a great deal about it ; only 
I know it is very different from Sindbad's. In his 
valley, there was only a diamond lying here and 
there ; but, in the real valley, there are diamonds 
covering the grass in showers every morning, instead 
of dew : and there are clusters of trees, which look 
like lilac trees ; but, in spring, all their blossoms are 
of amethyst. 

FLORRIE. But there can't be any serpents there, 
then ? 

L. Why not ? 

FLORRIE. Because they don't come into such 
beautiful places. 

L. I never said it was a beautiful place. 



6 The Valley of Diamonds, 

FLORRIE. What ! not with diamonds strewed 
about it like dew ? 

L. That's according to your fancy, Florrie. For 
myself, I like dew better. *^x 

Isabel. Oh, but the dew won't stay ; it all dries ! 

L. Yes ; and it would be much nicer if the 
diamonds dried too, for the people in the valley 
have to sweep them off the grass, in heaps, whenever 
they want to walk on it ; and then the heaps glitter 
so, they hurt one's eyes. 

Florrie. Now you're just playing, you know. 

L. So are you, you know. 

FLORRIE. Yes, but you mustn't play. 

L. That's very hard, Florrie ; why mustn't I, if 
you may ? 

Florrie. Oh, I may, because I'm little, but you 
mustn't, because you're — (hesitates for a delicate ex- 
pression of magnitude). 

L. {rudely taking the first that comes). Because 
I'm big ? No ; that's not the way of it at all, 
Florrie. Because you're little, you should have very 
little play ; and because I'm big, 1 should have a 
great deal. 

Isabel and Florrie (both). No — no — no — no. 
That isn't it at all. (Isabel, sola, quoting Miss 
Ingelozu) * The lambs play always — they know no 
better.' {Putting her head very much on one side) 



The Valley of Diamonds. 7 

Ah, now — please —please — tell us true ; we want to 
know, 

L. But why do you want me to tell you true, 
any more than the man who wrote the ' Arabian 
Nights ' ? 

Isabel. Because — because we like to know 
about real things ; and you can tell us, and we can't 
ask the man who wrote the stories. 

L. What do you call real things ? 

ISABEL. Now, you know ! Things that really 
are. 

L. Whether you can see them or not ? 

Isabel. Yes, if somebody else saw them. 

L. But if nobody has ever seen them ? 

Isabel {evading the point). Well, but, you know, 
if there were a real Valley of Diamonds, somebody 
must have seen it. 

L. You cannot be so sure of that, Isabel Many 
people go to real places, and never see them ; and 
many people pass through this valley, and never 
see it. 

Florrie. What stupid people they must be ! 

L. No, Florrie. They are much wiser than the 
people who do see it. 

May. I think I know where it is. 

Isabel. Tell us more about it, and then we'll 
guess. 



8 The Valley of Diamonds. 

L. Well — there's a great broad road, by a 
river-side, leading up into it. 

May {gravely cunning, with emphasis on the last 
word). Does the road really go up? 

L. You think it should go down into a valley ? 
No, it goes up ; this is a valley among the hills, and 
it is as high as the clouds, and is often full of them ; 
so that even the people who most want to see it, 
cannot, always. 

Isabel. And what is the river beside the road 
like ? 

L. It ought to be very beautiful, because it flows 
over diamond sand — only the water is thick and red. 

Isabel. Red water ? 

L. It isn't all water. 

May. Oh, please never mind that, Isabel, just 
now ; I want to hear about the valley. 

L. So the entrance to it is very wide, under a 
steep rock ; only such numbers of people are always 
trying to get in, that they keep jostling each other, 
and manage it but slowly. Some weak ones are 
pushed back, and never get in at all ; and make 
great moaning as they go away : but perhaps they 
are none the worse in the end. 

May. And when one gets in, what is it like ? 

L. It is up and down, broken kind of ground : 
the road stops directly ; and there are great dark 



The Valley of Diamonds. 9 

rocks, covered all over with wild gourds and wild 
vines ; the gourds, if you cut them, are red, with 
black seeds, like water-melons, and look ever so nice ; 
and the people of the place make a red pottage 
of them : but you must take care not to eat any if 
you ever want to leave the valley, (though I believe 
putting plenty of meal in it makes it wholesome). 
Then the wild vines have clusters of the colour of 
amber ; and the people of the country say they are 
the grape of Eshcol ; and sweeter than honey : but 
indeed, if anybody else tastes them, they are like 
gall. Then there are thickets of bramble, so thorny 
that they would be cut away directly, anywhere else ; 
but here they are covered with little cinque-foiled 
blossoms of pure silver ; and, for berries, they have 
clusters of rubies. Dark rubies, which you only see 
are red after gathering them. But you may fancy 
what blackberry parties the children have ! Only 
they get their frocks and hands sadly torn. 

Lily. But rubies can't spot one's frocks, as 
blackberries do ? 

L. No ; but I'll tell you what spots them — the 
mulberries. There are great forests of them, all up 
the hills, covered with silkworms, some munching the 
leaves so loud that it is like mills at work ; and some 
spinning. But the berries are the blackest you ever 
saw ; and, wherever they fall, they stain a deep red ; 



io The Valley of Diamonds. 

and nothing ever washes it out again. And it is 
their juice, soaking through the grass, which makes 
the river so red, because all its springs are in this 
wood. And the boughs of the trees are twisted, as 
if in pain, like old olive branches ; and their leaves 
are dark. And it is in these forests that the serpents 
are ; but nobody is afraid of them. They have fine 
crimson crests, and they are wreathed about the 
wild branches, one in every tree, nearly ; and they 
are singing serpents, for the serpents are, in this 
forest, what birds are in ours. 

Florrie. Oh, I don't want to go there at all, now. 

L. You would like it very much indeed, Florrie, 
if you were there. The serpents would not bite you ; 
the only fear would be of your turning into one ! 

Florrie. Oh, dear, but that's worse. 

L. You wouldn't think so if you really were 
turned into one, Florrie ; you would be very proud 
of your crest. And as long as you were yourself 
(not that you could get there if you remained quite 
the little Florrie you are now), you would like to 
hear the serpents sing. They hiss a little through it, 
like the cicadas in Italy ; but they keep good time, 
and sing delightful melodies ; and most of them 
have seven heads, with throats which each take a 
note of the octave ; so that they can sing chords — 
it is very fine indeed. And the fireflies fly round the 



The Valley of Diamonds. 1 1 

edge of the forests all the night long ; you wade in 
fireflies, they make the fields look like a lake trem- 
bling with reflection of stars ; but you must take 
care not to touch them, for they are not like Italian 
fireflies, but burn, like real sparks. 

FLORRIE. I don't like it at all ; I'll never go there. 

L. I hope not, Florrie ; or at least that you will 
get out again if you do. And it is very difficult to 
get out, for beyond these serpent forests there are 
great cliffs of dead gold, which form a labyrinth, 
winding always higher and higher, till the gold is 
all split asunder by wedges of ice ; and glaciers, 
welded, half of ice seven times frozen, and half of 
gold seven times frozen, hang down from them, and 
fall in thunder, cleaving into deadly splinters, like 
the Cretan arrowheads ; and into a mixed dust of 
snow and gold, ponderous, yet which the mountain 
whirlwinds are able to lift and drive in wreaths and 
pillars, hiding the paths with a burial cloud, fatal at 
once with wintry chill, and weight of golden ashes. 
So the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one, 
and are buried there : — yet, over the drifted graves, 
those who are spared climb to the last, through coil 
on coil of the path ; — for at the end of it they see 
the king of the valley, sitting on his throne : and 
beside him, (but it is only a false vision), spectra of 
creatures like themselves, set on thrones, from which 



1 2 The ' Valley of Diamonds. 

they seem to look down on all the kingdoms of the 
world, and the glory of them. And on the canopy 
of his throne there is an inscription in fiery letters, 
which they strive to read, but cannot ; for it is 
written in words which arc like the words of all 
languages, and yet are of none. Men say it is more 
like their own tongue to the English than it is to 
any other nation ; but the only record of it is by an 
Italian, who heard the king himself cry it as a war 
cry, ' Pape Satan, Pape Satan Aleppe.'* 

Sibyl. But do they all perish there ? You said 
there was a way through the valley, and out of it. 

L. Yes ; but few find it. If any of them keep 
to the grass paths, where the diamonds are swept 
aside ; and hold their hands over their eyes so as 
not to be dazzled, the grass paths lead forward 
gradually to a place where one sees a little opening 
in the golden rocks. You were at Chamouni last 
year, Sibyl ; did your guide chance to show you the 
pierced rock of the Aiguille du Midi ? 

Sibyl. No, indeed, we only got up from Geneva 
on Monday night ; and it rained all Tuesday : and 
we had to be back at Geneva again, early on Wed- 
nesday morning. 

L. Of course. That is the way to see a country 
in a Sibylline manner, by inner consciousness : but 

* Dante, Inf. 7. 1. 



The Valley of Diamonds. 13 

you might have seen the pierced rock in your drive 
up, or down, if the clouds broke : not that there is 
much to see in it ; one of the crags of the aiguille- 
edge, on the southern slope of it, is struck sharply 
through, as by an awl, into a little eyelet hole ; 
which you may see, seven thousand feet above the 
valley, (as the clouds flit past behind it, or leave the 
sky), first white, and then dark blue. Well, there's 
just such an eyelet hole in one of the upper crags 
of the Diamond Valley ; and, from a distance, you 
think that it is no bigger than the eye of a needle. 
But if you get up to it, they say you may drive a 
loaded camel through it, and that there are fine 
things on the other side, but I have never spoken 
with anybody who had been through. 

SlBYL. I think we understand it now. We will 
try to write it down, and think of it. 

L. Meantime, Florric, though all that I have 
been telling you is very true, yet you must not think 
the sort of diamonds that people wear in rings and 
necklaces are found lying about on the grass. 
Would you like to see how they really are found ? 

FLORRIE. Oh, yes — yes. 

L. Isabel — or Lily — run up to my room and 
fetch me the little box with a glass lid, out of the 
top drawer of the chest of drawers. {Race between 
Lily and Isabel.) 



14 The Valley of Diamonds. 

{Re-enter ISABEL with the box, very much out of 
breath. Lily behind?) 

L. Why, you never can beat Lily in a race on 
the stairs, can you, Isabel ? 

ISABEL {panting). Lily — beat me — ever so far — 
but she gave me — the box — to carry in. 

L. Take off the lid then ; gently. 

FLORRIE {after peeping in, disappointed). There's 
only a great ugly brown stone ! 

L. Not much more than that, certainly, Florrie, 
if people were wise. But look, it is not a single 
stone ; but a knot of pebbles fastened together by 
gravel ; and in the gravel, or compressed sand, if 
you look close, you will see grains of gold glittering 
everywhere, all through ; and then, do you see these 
two white beads, which shine, as if they had been 
covered with grease ? 

Florrie. May I touch them ? 

L. Yes ; you will find they are not greasy, only 
very smooth. Well, those are the fatal jewels ; native 
here in their dust with gold, so that you may see, 
cradled here together, the two great enemies of man- 
kind, — the strongest of all malignant physical powers 
that have tormented our race. 

SlBYL. Is that really so ? I know they do great 
harm ; but do they not also do great good ? 

L. My dear child, what good ? Was any woman, 



The Valley of Diamonds. 15 

do you suppose, ever the better for possessing 
diamonds ? but how many have been made base, 
frivolous, and miserable by desiring them ? Was 
ever man the better for having coffers full of gold ? 
But who shall measure the guilt that is incurred to 
fill them ? Look into the history of any civilised 
nations ; analyse, with reference to this one cause of 
crime and misery, the lives and thoughts of their 
nobles, priests, merchants, and men of luxurious life. 
Every other temptation is at last concentrated into 
this ; pride, and lust, and envy, and anger, all give 
up their strength to avarice. The sin of the whole 
world is essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not 
disbelieve their Christ ; but they sell Him. 

Sibyl. But surely that is the fault of human 
nature ? it is not caused by the accident, as it were, 
of there being a pretty metal, like gold, to be 
found by digging. If people could not find that, 
would they not find something else, and quarrel 
for it instead ? 

L. _ No. Wherever legislators have succeeded in 
excluding, for a time, jewels and precious metals from 
among national possessions, the national spirit has 
remained healthy. Covetousness is not natural to 
man — generosity is ; but covetousness must be ex- 
cited by a special cause, as a given disease by a given 
miasma ; and the essential nature of a material for 



1 6 The Valley of Diamonds. 

the excitement of covetousness is, that it shall be a 
beautiful thing which can be retained without a use. 
The moment we can use our possessions to any good 
purpose ourselves, the instinct of communicating that 
use to others rises side by side with our power. If 
you can read a book rightly, you will want others 
to hear it ; if you can enjoy a picture rightly, you 
will want others to see it : learn how to manage a 
horse, a plough, or a ship, and you will desire to 
make your subordinates good horsemen, ploughmen, 
or sailors : you will never be able to see the fine 
instrument you are master of, abused ; but, once fix 
your desire on anything useless, and all the purest 
pride and folly in your heart will mix with the 
desire, and make you at last wholly inhuman, a 
mere ugly lump of stomach and suckers, like a 
cuttle-fish. 

Sibyl. But surely, these two beautiful things, 
gold and diamonds, must have been appointed to 
some good purpose ? 

L. Quite conceivably so, my dear : as also 
earthquakes and pestilences ; but of such ultimate 
purposes we can have no sight. The practical, im- 
mediate office of the earthquake and pestilence is to 
slay us, like moths ; and, as moths, we shall be wise 
to live out of their way. So, the practical, imme- 
diate office of gold and diamonds is the multiplied 



The Valley of Diamonds. 1 7 

destruction of souls, (in whatever sense you have been 
taught to understand that phrase) ; and the paralysis 
of wholesome human effort and thought on the face 
of God's earth : and a wise nation will live out of 
the way of them. The money which the English 
habitually spend in cutting diamonds would, in ten 
years, if it were applied to cuttkig rocks instead, 
leave no dangerous reef nor difficult harbour round 
the whole island coast. Great Britain would be a 
diamond worth cutting, indeed, a true piece of regalia. 
{Leaves this to their thoughts for a little while.) 
Then, also, we poor mineralogists might sometimes 
have the chance of seeing a fine crystal of diamond 
unhacked by the jeweller. 

Sibyl. Would it be more beautiful uncut ? 

L. No ; but of infinite interest. We might even 
come to know something about the making of 
diamonds. 

Sibyl. I thought the chemists could make them 
already ? 

L. In very small black crystals, yes ; but no one 
knows how they are formed where they are found ; 
or if indeed they are formed there at all. These, in 
my hand, look as if they had been swept down with 
the gravel and gold ; only we can trace the gravel 
and gold to their native rocks, but not the diamonds. 
Read the account given of the diamond in any good 

2 



1 8 The Valley of Diamonds. 

work on mineralogy ; — you will find nothing but 
lists of localities of gravel, or conglomerate rock 
(which is only an old indurated gravel). Some say it 
was once a vegetable gum ; it may have been charred 
wood ; but what one would like to know is, mainly, 
why charcoal should make itself into diamonds in 
India, and only into black lead in Borrowdale. 

Sibyl. Are they wholly the same, then ? 

L. There is a little iron mixed with our black 
lead ; but nothing to hinder its crystallisation. Your 
pencils in fact are all pointed with formless diamond, 
though they would be H H H pencils to purpose, if 
it crystallised. 

Sibyl. But what is crystallisation ? 

L. A pleasant question, when one's half asleep, 
and it has been tea time these two hours. What 
thoughtless things girls are ! 

Sibyl. Yes, we are ; but we want to know, for 
all that. 

L. My dear, it would take a week to tell you. 

Sibyl. Well, take it, and tell us. 

L. But nobody knows anything about it. 

Sibyl. Then tell us something that nobody 
knows. 

L. Get along with you, and tell Dora to make tea. 

{The house rises; but of course the LECTURER 
wanted to be forced to lecture again, and was.) 



LECTURE II. 
THE PYRAMID BUILDERS. 



LECTURE II. 

THE PYRAMID BUILDERS. 

In the large Schoolroom, to which everybody has been 
summoned by ringing of the great bell. 

L. So you have all actually come to hear about 
crystallisation ! I cannot ccnceive why, unless the 
little ones think that the discussion may involve 
some reference to sugar- candy. 

{Symptoms of high displeasure among the younger 
members of council. ISABEL froze ns severely 
at L., and shakes her head violently.) 

My dear children, if you knew it, you are your- 
selves, at this moment, as you sit in your ranks, 
nothing, in the eyes of a mineralogist, but a lovely 
group of rosy sugar-candy, arranged by atomic 
forces. And even admitting you to be something 
more, you have certainly been crystallising without 
knowing it. Did not I hear a great hurrying and 
whispering, ten minutes ago, when you were late in 
from the playground ; and thought you would not 
all be quietly seated by the time I was ready : 
— besides some discussion about places — something 



22 The Pyramid Builders. 

about ' it's not being fair that the little ones should 
always be nearest ' ? Well, you were then all being 
crystallised. When you ran in from the garden, 
and against one another in the passages, you were 
in what mineralogists would call a state of solution, 
and gradual confluence ; when you got seated in 
those orderly rows, each in her proper place, you 
became crystalline. That is just what the atoms 
of a mineral do, if they can, whenever they get 
disordered : they get into order again as soon as 
may be. 

I hope you feel inclined to interrupt me, and say, 
1 But we know our places ; how do the atoms know 
theirs ? And sometimes we dispute about our 
places ; do the atoms — (and, besides, we don't like 
being compared to atoms at all) — never dispute 
about theirs ? ' Two wise questions these, if you 
had a mind to put them ! it was long before I asked 
them myself, of myself. And I will not call you 
atoms any more. May I call you — let me see — 
1 primary molecules ' ? {General dissent indicated in 
subdued but decisive murmurs^) No ! not even, in 
familiar Saxon, ' dust ' ? 

(Pause, with expression on faces of sorrowful 
doubt ; LlLY gives voice to the general senti- 
ment in a timid ' Please do lit.') 

No, children, I won't call you that ; and mind, as 



The Pyramid Btiilders. 23 

you grow up, that you do not get into an idle and 
wicked habit of calling yourselves that. You are 
something better than dust, and have other duties to 
do than ever dust can do ; and the bonds of affection 
you will enter into are better than merely 'getting 
into order.' But see to it, on the other hand, that 
you always behave at least as well as 'dust;' remem- 
ber, it is only on compulsion, and while it has no 
free permission to do as it likes, that it ever gets out 
of order : but sometimes, with some of us, the com- 
pulsion has to be the other way — hasn't it ? {Re- 
monstratory whispers, expressive of opinion that the 
LECTURER is becoming too personal.) I'm not looking 
at anybody in particular — indeed I am not. Nay, if 
you blush so, Kathleen, how can one help looking ? 
We'll go back to the atoms. 

4 How do they know their places ? ' you asked, 
or should have asked. Yes, and they have to do 
much more than know them : they have to find their 
way to them, and that quietly and at once, without 
running against each other. 

We may, indeed, state it briefly thus : — Suppose 
you have to build a castle, with towers and roofs 
and buttresses, out of bricks of a given shape, and 
that these bricks are all lying in a huge heap at the 
bottom, in utter confusion, upset out of carts at 
random. You would have to draw a great many 



24 The Pyramid Builders. 

plans, and count all your bricks, and be sure you 
had enough for this and that tower, before you 
began, and then you would have to lay your founda- 
tion, and add layer by layer, in order, slowly. 

But how would you be astonished, in these melan- 
choly days, when children don't read children's 
books, nor believe any more in fairies, if suddenly a 
real benevolent fairy, in a bright-red gown, were to 
rise in the midst of the red bricks, and to tap the 
heap of them with her wand, and say: ■ Bricks, bricks, 
to your places ! ' and then you saw in an instant the 
whole heap rise in the air, like a swarm of red bees, 
and — you have been used to see bees make a honey- 
comb, and to think that strange enough, but now you 
would see the honeycomb make itself ! — You want 
to ask scmething, Florrie, by the look of your eyes. 

FLORRIE. Are they turned into real bees, with 
stings ? 

L. No, Florrie ; you are only to fancy flying 
bricks, as you saw the slates flying from the roof the 
other day in the storm; only those slates didn't seem 
to know where they were going, and, besides, were 
going where they had no business: but my spell- 
bound bricks, though they have no wings, and what 
is worse, no heads and no eyes, yet find their way in 
the air just where they should settle, into towers and 
roofs, each flying to his place and fastening there 



The Pyramid Builders, 25 

at the right moment, so that every other one shall 
fit to him in his turn. 

LlLY. But who are the fairies, then, who build 
the crystals ? 

L. There is one great fairy, Lily, who builds 
much more than crystals ; but she builds these also. 
I dreamed that I saw her building a pyramid, the 
other day, as she used to do for the Pharaohs. 

Isabel. But that was only a dream ? 

L. Some dreams are truer than some wakings, 
Isabel ; but I won't tell it you unless you like 

Isabel. Oh, please, please. 

L. You are all such wise children, there's no 
talking to you ; you won't believe anything. 

Lily. No, we are not wise, and we will believe 
anything, when you say we ought. 

L. Well, it came about this way. Sibyl, do you 
recollect that evening when we had been looking at 
your old cave by Cumae, and wondering why you 
didn't live there still : and then we wondered how 
old you were ; and Egypt said you wouldn't tell, 
and nobody else could tell but she ; and you 
laughed — I thought very gaily for a Sibyl — and 
said you would harness a flock of cranes for us, and 
we might fly over to Egypt if we liked, and see ? 

Sibyl. Yes, and you went, and couldn't find out 
after all! 



26 The Pyramid Builders. 

L. Why, you know, Egypt had been just doubling 
that third pyramid of hers ; * and making a new- 
entrance into it ; and a fine entrance it was ! First, 
we had to go through an ante-room, which had both 
its doors blocked up with stones ; and then we had 
three granite portcullises to pull up, one after an- 
other : and the moment we had got under them, 
Egypt signed to somebody above ; and down they 
came again behind us, with a roar like thunder, only 
louder ; then we got into a passage fit for nobody 
but rats, and Egypt wouldn't go any further herself, 
but said we might go on if we liked ; and so we came 
to a hole in the pavement, and then to a granite trap- 
door — and then we thought we had gone quite far 
enough, and came back, and Egypt laughed at us. 

EGYPT. You would not have had me take my 
crown off, and stoop all the way down a passage fit 
only for rats ? 

L. It was not the crown, Egypt — you know 
that very well. It was the flounces that would not 
let you go any farther. I suppose, however, you 
wear them as typical of the inundation of the Nile, 
so it is all right. 

ISABEL. Why didn't you take me with you ? Where 
rats can go, mice can. I wouldn't have come back. 

L. No, mousie ; you would have gone on by 

* Note i. 



The Pyramid Builders, 2 J 

yourself, and you might have waked one of Pasht's 
cats,* and it would have eaten you. I was very 
glad you were not there. But after all this, I sup- 
pose the imagination of the heavy granite blocks 
and the underground ways had troubled me, and 
dreams are often shaped in a strange opposition to 
the impressions that have caused them ; and from 
all that we had been reading in Bunsen about 
stones that couldn't be lifted with levers, I began to 
dream about stones that lifted themselves with wings. 

Sibyl. Now you must just tell us all about it. 

L. I dreamed that I was standing beside the 
lake, out of whose clay the bricks were made for 
the great pyramid of Asychis.")" They had just 
been all finished, and were lying by the like margin, 
in long ridges, like waves. It was near evening ; 
and as I looked towards the sunset, I saw a thing 
like a dark pillar standing where the rock of the 
desert stoops to the Nile valley. I did not know 
there was a pillar there, and wondered at it ; 
and it grew larger, and glided nearer, becoming 
like the form of a man, but vast, and it did not 
move its feet, but glided, like a pillar of sand. 
And as it drew nearer, I looked by chance past 
it, towards the sun ; and saw a silver cloud, which 
was of all the clouds closest to the sun, (and 

* Note iii. t Note ii. 



28 The Pyramid Builders. 

in one place crossed it,) draw itself back from 
the sun, suddenly. And it turned, and shot to- 
wards the dark pillar ; leaping in an arch, like an 
arrow out of a bow. And I thought it was light- 
ning ; but when it came near the shadowy pillar, it 
sank slowly down beside it, and changed into the 
shape of a woman, very beautiful, and with a 
strength of deep calm in her blue eyes. She was 
robed to the feet with a white robe ; and above 
that, to her knees, by the cloud which I had seen 
across the sun ; but all the golden ripples of it 
had become plumes, so that it had changed into 
two bright wings like those of a vulture, which 
wrapped round her to her knees. She had a 
weaver's shuttle hanging over her shoulder, by the 
thread of it, and in her left hand, arrows, tipped 
with fire. 

ISABEL {clapping her hands). Oh ! it was Neith, 
it was Neith ! I know now. 

L. Yes ; it was Neith herself ; and as the two 
great spirits came nearer to me, I saw they were 
the Brother and Sister — the pillared shadow was 
the Greater Pthah.* And I heard them speak, 
and the sound of their words was like a distant 
singing. I could not understand the words one by 
one ; yet their sense came to me ; and so I knew 

* Note iii. 



The Pyramid Builders. 29 

that Neith had come down to see her brother's 
work, and the work that he had put into the mind 
of the king to make his servants do. And she was 
displeased at it ; because she saw only pieces of 
dark clay ; and no porphyry, nor marble, nor any 
fair stone that men might engrave the figures of the 
gods upon. And she blamed her brother, and said, 
' Oh, Lord of truth ! is this then thy will, that men 
should mould only four-square pieces of clay : and 
the forms of the gods no more ? ' Then the Lord 
of truth sighed, and said, ' Oh ! sister, in truth they 
do not love us; why should they set up our images? 
Let them do what they may, and not lie — let 
them make their clay four-square ; and labour ; 
and perish.' 

Then Neith's dark blue eyes grew darker, and she 
said, ' Oh, Lord of truth ! why should they love us ? 
their love is vain ; or fear us ? for their fear is base. 
Yet let them testify of us, that they knew we lived 
for ever.' 

But the Lord of truth answered, ' They know, 
and yet taey know not. Let them keep silence ; 
for their silence only is truth.' 

But Neith answered, ' Brother, wilt thou also 
make league with Death, because Death is true ? 
Oh ! thou potter, who hast cast these human things 
from thy wheel, many to dishonour, and few to 



30 The Pyramid Builders. 

honour ; wilt thou not let them so much as see my 
face ; but slay them in slavery ? ' 

But Pthah only answered, ' Let them build, sister, 
let them build.' 

And Neith answered, ' What shall they build, if 
I build not with them ? ' 

And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon 
the sand. And I saw suddenly, drawn on the sand, 
the outlines of great cities, and of vaults, and domes, 
and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers, greater 
than obelisks, covered with black clouds. And the 
wind blew ripples of sand amidst the lines that 
Pthah drew, and the moving sand was like the 
marching of men. But I saw that wherever Neith 
looked at the lines, they faded, and were effaced. 

' Oh, Brother ! ' she said at last, ■ what is this 
vanity ? If I, who am Lady of wisdom, do not 
mock the children of men, why shouldst thou mock 
them, who art Lord of truth ? ' 

But Pthah answered, ' They thought to bind 
me ; and they shall be bound. They shall labour 
in the fire for vanity.' 

And Neith said, looking at the sand, ' Brother, 
there is no true labour here — there is only weary 
life and wasteful death.' 

And Pthah answered, ' Is it not truer labour, 
sister, than thy sculpture of dreams ? ' 



The Pyramid Builders. 31 

Then Neith smiled ; and stopped suddenly. 

She looked to the sun ; its edge touched the 
horizon-edge of the desert. Then she looked to 
the long heaps of pieces of clay, that lay, each 
with its blue shadow, by the lake shore. 

' Brother,' she said, ' how long will this pyramid 
of thine be in building ? ' 

* Thoth will have sealed the scroll of the years 
ten times, before the summit is laid.' 

1 Brother, thou knowest not how to teach thy 
children to labour,' answered Neith. ' Look ! I 
must follow Phre beyond Atlas ; shall I build your 
pyramid for you before he goes down ? ' And 
Pthah answered, ' Yea, sister, if thou canst put 
thy winged shoulders to such work.' And Neith 
drew herself to her height ; and I heard a clashing 
pass through the plumes of her wings, and the asp 
stood up on her helmet, and fire gathered in her 
eyes. And she took one of the flaming arrows 
out of the sheaf in her left hand, and stretched it 
out over the heaps of clay. And they rose up 
like flights of locusts, and spread themselves in 
the air, so that it grew dark in a moment. Then 
Neith designed them places with her arrow point ; 
and they drew into ranks, like dark clouds laid 
level at morning. Then Neith pointed with her 
arrow to the north, and to the south, and to the 



32 The Pyramid Builders. 

east, and to the west, and the flying motes of 
earth drew asunder into four great ranked crowds ; 
and stood, one in the north, and one in the south, 
and one in the east, and one in the west — one 
against another. Then Neith spread her wings wide 
for an instant, and closed them with a sound like 
the sound of a rushing sea ; and waved her hand 
towards the foundation of the pyramid, where it 
was laid on the brow of the desert. And the four 
flocks drew together and sank down, like sea-birds 
settling to a level rock ; and when they met, there 
was a sudden flame, as broad as the pyramid, and as 
high as the clouds ; and it dazzled me ; and I closed 
my eyes for an instant ; and when I looked again, 
the pyramid stood on its rock, perfect ; and purple 
with the light from the edge of the sinking sun. 

The younger Children {variously pleased). 
I'm so glad ! How nice ! But what did Pthah say ? 

L. Neith did not wait to hear what he would 
say. When I turned back to look at her, she 
was gone ; and I only saw the level white cloud 
form itself again, close to the arch of the sun as 
it sank. And as the last edge of the sun dis- 
appeared, the form of Pthah faded into a mighty 
shadow, and so passed away. 

Egypt. And was Neith's pyramid left ? 

L. Yes ; but you could not think, Egypt, what 



The Pyramid Builders. 33 

a strange feeling of utter loneliness came over me 
when the presences of the two gods passed away. 
It seemed as if I had never known what it was 
to be alone before ; and the unbroken line of the 
desert was terrible. 

Egypt. I used to feel that, when I was queen ; 
sometimes I had to carve gods, for company, all 
over my palace. I would fain have seen real 
ones, if I could. 

L. But listen a moment yet, for that was not 
quite all my dream. The twilight drew swiftly to the 
dark, and I could hardly see the great pyramid ; 
when there came a heavy murmuring sound in the 
air ; and a horned beetle, with terrible claws, fell on 
the sand at my feet, with a blow like the beat of a 
hammer. Then it stood up on its hind claws, and 
waved its pincers at me : and its fore claws became 
strong arms, and hands ; one grasping real iron pincers, 
and the other a huge hammer ; and it had a helmet 
on its head, without any eyelet holes, that I could 
see. And its two hind claws became strong crooked 
legs, with feet bent inwards. And so there stood by 
me a dwarf, in glossy black armour, ribbed and em- 
bossed like a beetle's back, leaning on his hammer. 
And I could not speak for wonder ; but he spoke with 
a murmur like the dying away of a beat upon a bell. 
He said, ' I will make Neith's great pyramid small, 

3 



34 The Pyramid Builders. 

I am the lower Pthah ; and have power over fire. I 
can wither the strong things, and strengthen the 
weak : and everything that is great I can make 
small, and everything that is little I can make great.' 
Then he turned to the angle of the pyramid and 
limped towards it. And the pyramid grew deep 
purple; and then red like blood, and then pale rose- 
colour, like fire. And I saw that it glowed with fire 
from within. And the lower Pthah touched it with 
the hand that held the pincers ; and it sank down 
like the sand in an hour-glass, — then drew itself to- 
gether, and sank, still, and became nothing, it seemed 
to me; but the armed dwarf stooped down, and took 
it into his hand, and brought it to me, saying, 'Every- 
thing that is great I can make like this pyramid : 
and give into men's hands to destroy.' And I saw 
that he had a little pyramid in his hand, with as 
many courses in it as the large one ; and built like 
that, — only so small. And because it glowed still, 
I was afraid to touch it ; but Pthah said, ' Touch 
it — for I have bound the fire within it, so that it 
cannot burn.' So I touched it, and took it into my 
own hand ; and it was cold ; only red, like a ruby. 
And Pthah laughed, and became like a beetle again, 
and buried himself in the sand, fiercely ; throwing it 
back over his shoulders. And it seemed to me as if 
he would draw me down with him into the sand ; 



The Pyramid Builders. 35 

and I started back, and woke, holding the little 
pyramid so fast in my hand that it hurt me. 

Egypt. Holding what in your hand ? 

L. The little pyramid. 

Egypt. Neith's pyramid ? 

L. Neith's, I believe ; though not built for 
Asychis. I know only that it is a little rosy 
transparent pyramid, built of more courses of bricks 
than I can count, it being made so small. You 
don't believe me, of course, Egyptian infidel ; but 
there it is. {Giving crystal of rose Fluor}) 

{Confused examination by crowded audience, over 
each other s shoulders and under each other s arms. 
Disappointment begins to manifest itself}) 

SlBYL {not quite knowing why she and others are 
disappointed). But you showed us this the other day ! 

L. Yes ; but you would not look at it the other day. 

Sibyl. But was all that fine dream only about this ? 

L. What finer thing could a dream be about 
than this ? It is small, if you will ; but when 
you begin to think of things rightly, the ideas 
of smallness and largeness pass away. The making 
of this pyramid was in reality just as wonderful 
as the dream I have been telling you, and just 
as incomprehensible. It was not, I suppose, as 
swift, but quite as grand things are done as swiftly. 
When Neith makes crystals of snow, it needs a 



7,6 The Pyramid Builders. 

great deal more marshalling of the atoms, by her 
flaming arrows, than it does to make crystals 
like this one ; and that is done in a moment. 

Egypt. But how you do puzzle us! Why do 
you say Neith does it ? You don't mean that 
she is a real spirit, do you ? 

L. What /mean, is of little consequence. What 
the Egyptians meant, who called her ' Neith/ — 
or Homer, who called her ' Athena,' — or Solomon, 
who called her by a word which the Greeks render 
as ' Sophia,' you must judge for yourselves. But 
her testimony is always the same, and all nations 
have received it : 'I was by Him as one brought 
up with Him, and I was daily His delight; rejoicing 
in the habitable parts of the earth, and my delights 
were with the sons of men.' 

Mary. But is not that only a personification ? 

L. If it be, what will you gain by unpersoni- 
fying it, or what right have you to do so? Cannot 
you accept the image given you, in its life ; and 
listen, like children, to the words which chiefly be- 
long to you as children ; ' I love them that love 
me, and those that seek me early shall find me ' ? 
{They are all quiet for a minute or two ; 
questions begin to appear in their eyes.) 

I cannot talk to you any more to-day. Take 
that rose crystal away with you, and think. 



LECTURE III. 

THE CRYSTAL LIFE. 



LECTURE III. 

THE CRYSTAL LIFE. 

A very dull Lecture, wilfully brought upon themselves 

by the elder children. Some of the young ones have, 

however, ??ia?iaged to get in by ?nistake. Scene, the 
Schoolroom. 

L. So I am to stand up here merely to be 
asked questions, to-day, Miss Mary, am I ? 

Mary. Yes ; and you must answer them 
plainly ; without telling us any more stories. You 
are quite spoiling the children ; the poor little 
things' heads are turning round like kaleidoscopes ; 
and they don't know in the least what you mean. 
Nor do we old ones, either, for that matter : to-day 
you must really tell us nothing but facts. 

L. I am sworn ; but you won't like it, a bit. 

Mary. Now, first of all, what do you mean 
by ' bricks ' ? — Are the smallest particles of minerals 
all of some accurate shape, like bricks ? 

L. I do not know, Miss Mary ; I do not even 
know if anybody knows. The smallest atoms which 
are visibly and practically put together to make large 
crystals, may better be described as ' limited in fixed 



40 The Crystal Life. 

directions ' than as ' of fixed forms.' But I can tell 
you nothing clear about ultimate atoms : you will find 
the idea of little bricks, or, perhaps, of little spheres, 
available for all the uses you will have to put it to. 

MARY. Well, it's very provoking ; one seems 
always to be stopped just when one is coming to 
the very thing one wants to know. 

L. No, Mary, for we should not wish to know 
anything but what is easily and assuredly know- 
able. There's no end to it. If I could show 
you, or myself, a group of ultimate atoms, quite 
clearly, in this magnifying glass, we should both 
be presently vexed because we could not break 
them in two pieces, and see their insides. 

Mary. Well then, next, what do you mean 
by the flying of the bricks ? What is it the atoms 
do, that is like flying ? 

L. When they are dissolved, or uncrystallised, 
they are really separated from each other, like a 
swarm of gnats in the air, or like a shoal of fish in 
the sea ; — generally at about equal distances. In 
currents of solutions, or at different depths of them, 
one part may be more full of the dissolved atoms 
than another ; but, on the whole, you may think of 
them as equidistant, like the spots in the print of 
your gown. If they are separated by force of heat 
only, the substance is said to be melted ; if they 



The Crystal Life. 41 

are separated by any other substance, as particles 
of sugar by water, they are said to be 'dissolved.' 
Note this distinction carefully, all of you. 

DORA. I will be very particular. When next 
you tell me there isn't sugar enough in your tea, I 
will say, " It is not yet dissolved, sir." 

L. I tell you what shall be dissolved, Miss Dora ; 
and that's the present parliament, if the members 
get too saucy. 

(DORA folds her hands and casts down her eyes) 

L. {proceeds in state) Now, Miss Mary, you 
know already, I believe, that nearly everything will 
melt, under a sufficient heat, like wax. Limestone 
melts (under pressure) ; sand melts ; granite melts ; 
the lava of a volcano is a mixed mass of many kinds 
of rocks, melted : and any melted substance nearly 
always, if not always, crystallises as it cools ; the 
more slowly, the more perfectly. Water melts at 
what we call the freezing, but might just as wisely, 
though not as conveniently, call the melting, point ; 
and radiates as it cools into the most beautiful of all 
known crystals. Glass melts at a greater heat, and 
will crystallise, if you let it cool slowly enough, in 
stars, much like snow. Gold needs more heat to 
melt it, but crystallises also exquisitely, as I will 
presently show you. Arsenic and sulphur crystallise 
from their vapours. Now, in any of these cases, 



42 The Crystal Life. 

either of melted, dissolved, or vaporous bodies, the 
particles are usually separated from each other, either 
by heat, or by an intermediate substance ; and in 
crystallising they are both brought nearer to each 
other, and packed, so as to fit as closely as possible ; 
the essential part of the business being not the 
bringing together, but the packing. Who packed 
your trunk for you, last holidays, Isabel ? 

Isabel. Lily does, always. 

L. And how much can you allow for Lily's good 
packing, in guessing what will go into the trunk ? 

Isabel. Oh ! I bring twice as much as the trunk 
holds. Lily always gets everything in. 

Lily. Ah ! but, Isey, if you only knew what a 
time it takes ! and since you've had those great hard 
buttons on your frocks, I can't do anything with 
them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know. 

L. Yes, Lily, it would be well if she only knew 
what a time it takes ; and I wish any of us knew 
what a time crystallisation takes, for that is con- 
summately fine packing. The particles of the rock 
are thrown down, just as Isabel brings her things — 
in a heap ; and innumerable Lilies, not of the valley, 
but of the rock, come to pack them. But it takes 
such a time ! 

However, the best — out and out the best — way of 
-^ understanding the thing, is to crystallise yourselves. 



The Crystal Life, 43 

The Audience. Ourselves ! 

L. Yes ; not merely as you did the other day, 
carelessly, on the schoolroom forms ; but carefully 
and finely, out in the playground. You can play at 
crystallisation there as much as you please. 

Kathleen and Jessie. Oh ! how ? — how ? 

L. First, you must put yourselves together, as 
close as you can, in the middle of the grass, and 
form, for first practice, any figure you like. 

Jessie. Any dancing figure, do you mean ? 

L. No j I mean a square, or a cross, or a diamond. 
Any figure you like, standing close together. You 
had better outline it first on the turf, with sticks, or 
pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly drawn ; then 
get into it and enlarge or diminish it at one side, till 
you are all quite in it, and no empty space left. 

Dora. Crinoline and all ? 

L. The crinoline may stand eventually for rough 
crystalline surface, unless you pin it in ; and then 
you may make a polished crystal of yourselves. 

Lily. Oh, we'll pin it in — we'll pin it in ! 

L. Then, when you are all in the figure, let 
every one note her place, and who is next her on 
each side ; and let the outsiders count how many 
places they stand from the corners. 

Kathleen. Yes, yes,— and then ? 

L. Then you must scatter all over the play- 



44 The Crystal Life. 

ground — right over it from side to side, and end to 
end ; and put yourselves all at equal distances from 
each other, everywhere. You needn't mind doing it 
very accurately, but so as to be nearly equidistant ; 
not less than about three yards apart from each 
other, on every side. 

Jessie. We can easily cut pieces of string of 
equal length, to hold. And then ? 

L. Then, at a given signal, let everybody walk, 
at the same rate, towards the outlined figure in the 
middle. You had better sing as you walk ; that 
will keep you in good time. And as you close in 
towards it, let each take her place, and the next 
comers fit themselves in beside the first ones, till 
you are all in the figure again. 

Kathleen. Oh ! how we shall run against each 
other ! What fun it will be ! 

L. No, no, Miss Katie ; I can't allow any running 
against each other. The atoms never do that, what- 
ever human creatures do. You must all know your 
places, and find your way to them without jostling. 

Lily. But how ever shall we do that ? 

Isabel. Mustn't the ones in the middle be the 
nearest, and the outside ones farther off — when we 
go away to scatter, I mean ? 

L. Yes ; you must be very careful to keep your 
order ; you will soon find out how to do it ; it is only 



The Crystal Life. 45 

like soldiers forming square, except that each must 
stand still in her place as she reaches it, and the others 
come round her ; and you will have much more com- 
plicated figures, afterwards, to form, than squares. 

Isabel. I'll put a stone at my place ; then I 
shall know it. 

L. You might each nail a bit of paper to the 
turf, at your place, with your name upon it : but it 
would be of no use, for if you don't know your 
places, you will make a fine piece of business of it, 
while you are looking for your names. And, Isabel, 
if with a little head, and eyes, and a brain, (all of them 
very good and serviceable of their kind, as such 
things go), you think you cannot know your place 
without a stone at it, after examining it well, — how 
do you think each atom knows its place, when it 
never was there before, and there's no stone at it ? 

Isabel. But does every atom know its place ? 

L. How else could it get there ? 

Mary. Are they not attracted into their places ? 

L. Cover a piece of paper with spots, at equal 
intervals ; and then imagine any kind of attraction 
you choose, or any law of attraction, to exist between 
the spots and try how, on that permitted supposition, 
you can attract them into the figure of a Maltese 
cross, in the middle of the paper. 

Mary {having tried it). Yes ; I see that I can- 



46 The Crystal Life. 

not : — one would need all kinds of attractions, in 
different ways, at different places. But you do not 
mean that the atoms are alive ? 

L. What is it to be alive ? 

Dora. There now ; you're going to be provok- 
ing, I know. 

L. I do not see why it should be provoking to 
be asked what it is to be alive. Do you think 
you don't know whether you are alive or not ? 

(Isabel skips to the end of the room and back). 

L. Yes, Isabel, that's all very fine ; and you and 
I may call that being alive : but a modern philo- 
sopher calls it being in a ' mode of motion.' It 
requires a certain quantity of heat to take you to 
the sideboard ; and exactly the same quantity to 
bring you back again. That's all. 

Isabel. No, it isn't. And besides, I'm not hot. 

L. I am, sometimes, at the way they talk. How- 
ever, you know, Isabel, you might have been a 
particle of a mineral, and yet have been carried 
round the room, or anywhere else, by chemical 
forces, in the liveliest way. 

Isabel. Yes ; but I wasn't carried ; I carried myself. 

L. The fact is, mousie, the difficulty is not so 
much to say what makes a thing alive, as what makes 
it a Self. As soon as you are shut off from the rest 
of the universe into a Self, you begin to be alive, 



The Crystal Life. 47 

Violet {indignant). Oh, surely — surely that 
cannot be so. Is not all the life of the soul in 
communion, not separation ? 

L. There can be no communion where there is no 
distinction. But we shall be in an abyss of meta- 
physics presently, if we don't look out ; and besides, 
we must not be too grand, to-day, for the younger 
children. We'll be grand, some day by ourselves, if 
we must. ( The younger children arc not pleased, and 
prepare to remonstrate ; but knoiving by experience, 
that all conversations in which the word ' communion ' 
occurs, are unintelligible, think better of it) Meantime, 
for broad answer about the atoms. I do not think, 
we should use the word ' life,' of any energy which 
does not belong to a given form. A seed, or an egg, 
or a young animal, are properly called ' alive ' with 
respect to the force belonging to those forms, which 
consistently developes that form, and no other. But 
the force which crystallises a mineral appears to 
be chiefly external, and it does not produce an 
entirely determinate and individual form, limited 
in size, but only an aggregation, in which some 
limiting laws must be observed. 

Mary. But I do not see much difference, that 
way, between a crystal and a tree. 

L. Add, then, that the mode of the energy in 
a living thing implies a continual change in its 



48 The Crystal Life. 

elements ; and a period for its end. So you may- 
define life by its attached negative, death ; and still 
more by its attached positive, birth. But I won't be 
plagued any more about this, just now ; if you choose 
to think the crystals alive, do, and welcome. Rocks 
have always been called ' living ' in their native place. 

Mary. There's one question more ; then I've 
done. 

L. Only one ? 

MARY. Only one. 

L. But if it is answered, won't it turn into two ? 

Mary. No ; I think it will remain single, and 
be comfortable. 

L. Let me hear it. 

Mary. You know, we are to crystallise ourselves 
out of the whole playground. Now, what play- 
ground have the minerals ? Where are they 
scattered before they are crystallised ; and where 
are the crystals generally made ? 

L. That sounds to me more like three questions 
than one, Mary. If it is only one, it is a wide one. 

Mary. I did not say anything about the width 
of it. 

L. Well, I must keep it within the best compass 
I can. When rocks either dry from a moist state, 
or cool from a heated state, they necessarily alter 
in bulk ; and cracks, or open spaces, form in them 



The Crystal Life. 49 

in all directions. These cracks must be filled up 
with solid matter, or the rock would eventually 
become a ruinous heap. So, sometimes by water, 
sometimes by vapour, sometimes nobody knows 
how, crystallisable matter is brought from some- 
where, and fastens itself in these open spaces, so 
as to bind the rock together again, with crystal 
cement. A vast quantity of hollows are formed 
in lavas by bubbles of gas, just as the holes are 
left in bread well baked. In process of time these 
cavities are generally filled with various crystals. 

Mary. But where does the crystallising sub- 
stance come from ? 

L. Sometimes out of the rock itself; sometimes 
from below or above, through the veins. The 
entire substance of the contracting rock may be 
filled with liquid, pressed into it so as to fill 
every pore ; — or with mineral vapour : or it may 
be so charged at one place, and empty at another. 
There's no end to the ' may be's.' But all that 
you need fancy, for our present purpose, is that 
hollows in the rocks, like the caves in Derby- 
shire, are traversed by liquids or vapour containing 
certain elements in a more or less free or separate 
state, which crystallise on the cave walls. 

Sibyl. There now ; — Mary has had all her 
questions answered ; it's my turn to have mine. 

4 



50 The Crystal Life. 

L. Ah, there's a conspiracy among you, I see. 
I might have guessed as much. 

DORA. I'm sure you ask us questions enough ! 
How can you have the heart, when you dislike so 
to be asked them yourself? 

L. My dear child, if people do not answer 
questions, it does not matter how many they are 
asked, because they've no trouble with them. Now, 
when I ask you questions, I never expect to be 
answered ; but when you ask me, you always do ; 
and it's not fair. 

Dora. Very well, we shall understand next time. 

Sibyl. No, but seriously, we all want to ask 
one thing more, quite dreadfully. 

L. And I don't want to be asked it quite dread- 
fully ; but you'll have your own way, of course. 

Sibyl. We none of us understand about the lower 
Pthah. It was not merely yesterday ; but in all we 
have read about him in Wilkinson, or in any book, 
we cannot understand what the Egyptians put their 
god into that ugly little deformed shape for. 

L. Well, I'm glad it's that sort of question ; 
because I can answer anything I like, to that. 

EGYPT. Anything you like will do quite well for 
us ; we shall be pleased with the answer, if you are. 

L. I am not so sure of that, most gracious queen ; 
for I must begin by the statement that queens seem 



The Crystal Life. 51 

to have disliked all sorts of work, in those days, as 
much as some queens dislike sewing to-day. 

Egypt. Now, it's too bad ! and just when I 
was trying to say the civillest thing I could ! 

L. But, Egypt, why did you tell me you dis- 
liked sewing so ? 

Egypt. Did not I show you how the thread 
cuts my fingers ? and I always get cramp, somehow, 
in my neck, if I sew long. 

L. Well, I suppose the Egyptian queens thought 
everybody got cramp in their neck, if they sewed 
long ; and that thread always cut people's fingers. 
At all events, every kind of manual labour was 
despised both by them, and the Greeks ; and, 
while they owned the real good and fruit of it, 
they yet held it a degradation to all who practised 
it. Also, knowing the laws of life thoroughly, 
they perceived that the special practice necessary 
to bring any manual art to perfection strengthened 
the body distortedly ; one energy or member gaining 
at the expense of the rest. They especially dreaded 
and despised any kind of work that had to be done 
near fire : yet, feeling what they owed to it in metal- 
work, as the basis of all other work, they expressed 
this mixed reverence and scorn in the varied types 
of the lame Hephaestus, and the lower Pthah. 

Sibyl. But what did you mean by making 



52 The Crystal Life. 

him say, ' Everything great I can make small, and 
everything small great ' ? 

L. I had my own separate meaning in that. We 
have seen in modern times the power of the lower 
Pthah developed in a separate way, which no Greek 
nor Egyptian could have conceived. It is the cha- 
racter of pure and eyeless manual labour to conceive 
everything as subjected to it : and, in reality, to 
disgrace and diminish all that is so subjected ; ag- 
grandising itself, and the thought of itself, at the 
expense of all noble things. I heard an orator, and 
a good one too, at the Working Men's College, the 
other day, make a great point in a description of our 
railroads ; saying, with grandly conducted emphasis, 
1 They have made man greater, and the world less.' 
His working audience were mightily pleased ; they 
thought it so very fine a thing to be made bigger 
themselves ; and all the rest of the world less. I 
should have enjoyed asking them (but it would have 
been a pity — they were so pleased), how much less 
they would like to have the world made ; — and 
whether, at present, those of them really felt them- 
selves the biggest men, who lived in the least houses. 

Sibyl. But then, why did you make Pthah 
say that he could make weak things strong, and 
small things great ? 

L. My dear, he is a boaster and self-assertor, by 



The Crystal Life. 53 

nature ; but it is so far true. For instance, we used 
to have a fair in our neighbourhood — a very fine 
fair we thought it. You never saw such an one ; 
but if you look at the engraving of Turner's ' St. 
1 Catherine's Hill,' you will see what it was like. 
There were curious booths, carried on poles ; and 
peep-shows ; and music, with plenty of drums and 
; cymbals ; and much barley-sugar and ginger- bread, 
\ and the like ; and in the alleys of this fair the 
1 London populace would enjoy themselves, after their 
I fashion, very thoroughly. Well, the little Pthah set 
; to work upon it one day ; he made the wooden poles 
into iron ones, and put them across, like his own 
crooked legs, so that you always fall over them if you 
* don't look where you are going ; and he turned all 
j the canvas into panes of glass, and put it up on his 
iron cross-poles ; and made all the little booths into 
one great booth ;— and people said it was very fine, 
and a new style of architecture ; and Mr. Dickens 
I said nothing was ever like it in Fairy-land, which was 
I very true. And then the little Pthah set to work to 
I put fine fairings in it ; and he painted the Nineveh 
bulls afresh, with the blackest eyes he could paint 
(because he had none himself), and he got the angels 
down from Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like 
his gingerbread of old times ; and he sent for every- 
thing else he could think of, and put it in his booth. 



54 The Crystal Life. 

There are the casts of Niobe and her children ; 
and the Chimpanzee ; and the wooden Caffres and 
Nevv-Zealanders ; and the Shakespeare House ; and 
Le Grand Blondin, and Le Petit Blondin ; and 
Handel ; and Mozart ; and no end of shops and 
buns, and beer ; and all the little-Pthah-worshippers 
say, never was anything so sublime! 

Sibyl. Now, do you mean to say you never 
go to these Crystal Palace Concerts ? They're as 
good as good can be. 

L. I don't go to the thundering things with a 
million of bad voices in them. When I want a song, 
I get Julia Mannering and Lucy Bertram and Coun- 
sellor Pleydell to sing ' We be three poor mariners ' 
to me ; then I've no headache next morning. But I 
do go to the smaller concerts, when I can ; for they 
are very good, as you say, Sibyl ; and I always get 
a reserved seat somewhere near the orchestra, where 
I am sure I can see the kettle-drummer drum. 

Sibyl. Now do be serious, for one minute. 

L. I am serious — never was more so. You 
know one can't see the modulation of violinists' 
fingers, but one can see the vibration of the 
drummer's hand ; and it's lovely. 

Sibyl. But fancy going to a concert, not to 
hear, but to see ! 

L. Yes, it is very absurd. The quite right thing 



The Crystal Life. 55 

I believe, is to go there to talk. I confess, however, 
that in most music, when very well done, the doing of 
it is to me the chiefly interesting part of the business. 
I'm always thinking how good it would be for the 
fat, supercilious people, who care so little for their 
half-crown's worth, to be set to try and do a half- 
crown's worth of anything like it. 

Mary. But surely that Crystal Palace is a great 
good and help to the people of London ? 

L. The fresh air of the Norwood hills is, or was, 
my dear ; but they are spoiling that with smoke as 
fast as they can. And the palace (as they call it) is 
a better place for them, by much, than the old fair ; 
and it is always there, instead of for three days only ; 
and it shuts up at proper hours of night. And 
good use may be made of the things in it, if you 
know how : but as for its teaching the people, it 
will teach them nothing but the lowest of the lower 
Pthah's work — nothing but hammer and tongs. I 
saw a wonderful piece, of his doing, in the place, only 
the other, day. Some unhappy metal-worker — I am 
not sure if it was not a metal-working firm — had 
taken three years to make a golden eagle. 

Sibyl. Of real gold ? 

L. No ; of bronze, or copper, or some of their foul 
patent metals — it is no matter what. I meant a 
model of 'our chief British eagle. Every feather was 



56 The Crystal Life. 

made separately ; and every filament of every feather 
separately, and so joined on ; and all the quills 
modelled of the right length and right section, and 
at last the whole cluster of them fastened together. 
You know, children, I don't think much of my own 
drawing ; but take my proud word for once, that 
when I go to the Zoological Gardens, and happen to 
have a bit of chalk in my pocket, and the grey Harpy 
will sit, without screwing his head round, for thirty 
seconds, — I can do a better thing of him in that time 
than the three years' work of this industrious firm. 
For, during the thirty seconds, the eagle is my object 
— not myself; and during the three years, the firm's 
object, in every fibre of bronze it made, was itself, 
and not the eagle. That is the true meaning of the 
little Pthah's having no eyes — he can see only him- 
self. The Egyptian beetle was not quite the full 
type of him ; our northern ground beetle is a truer one. 
It is beautiful to see it at work, gathering its treasures 
(such as they are) into little round balls ; and pushing 
them home with the strong wrong end of it, — head 
downmost all the way, — like a modern political eco- 
nomist with his ball of capital, declaring that a nation 
can stand on its vices better than on its virtues. But 
away with you, children, now, for I'm getting cross. 
Dora. I'm going downstairs ; I shall take care, 
at any rate, that there are no little Pthahs in the 
kitchen cupboards. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE CRYSTAL ORDERS. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE CRYSTAL ORDERS. 

A working Lecture, in the large Schoolroom ; with experi- 
mental Interludes. The great bell has rung unexpectedly. 

KATHLEEN (entering disconsolate, though first at 
the summons). Oh dear, oh dear, what a day ! 
Was ever anything so provoking ! just when we 
wanted to crystallise ourselves ; — and I'm sure it's 
going to rain all day long. 

L. So am I, Kate. The sky has quite an Irish 
way with it. But I don't see why Irish girls should 
also look so dismal. Fancy that you don't want to 
crystallise yourselves : you didn't the day before 
yesterday, and you were not unhappy when it 
rained then. 

FLORRIE. Ah ! but we do want to-day ; and 
the rain's so tiresome. 

L. That is to say, children, that because you are 
all the richer by the expectation of playing at a new 
game, you choose to make yourselves unhappier 



60 The Crystal Orders. 

than when you had nothing to look forward to, 
but the old ones. 

Isabel. But then, to have to wait — wait — wait ; 
and before we've tried it ; — and perhaps it will rain 
to-morrow, too ! 

L. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We 
can make ourselves uncomfortable to any extent 
with perhapses, Isabel. You may stick perhapses 
into your little minds like pins, till you are as un- 
comfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with 
their arrows when he would not lie quiet. 

Isabel. But what are we to do to-day ? 

L. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when 
he saw there was nothing better to be done. And 
to practise patience. I can tell you, children, that 
requires nearly as much practising as music ; and we 
are constantly losing our lessons when the master 
comes. Now, to-day, here's a nice little adagio 
lesson for us, if we play it properly. 

Isabel. But I don't like that sort of lesson. I 
can't play it properly. 

L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel ? 
The more need to practise. All one's life is a music, 
if one touches the notes rightly and in time. But 
there must be no hurry. 

Kathleen. I'm sure there's no music in stopping 
in on a rainy day. 



The Crystal Orders. 61 

L. There's no music in a ' rest,' Katie, that I know 
of: but there's the making of music in it. And 
people are always missing that part of the life- 
melody ; and scrambling on without counting — not 
that it's easy to count ; but nothing on which so much 
depends ever is easy. People are always talking of 
perseverance, and courage, and fortitude ; but patience 
is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, — and the 
rarest too. I know twenty persevering girls for one 
patient one : but it is only that twenty- first who can 
do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience 
lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all 
powers. Hope herself ceases to be happiness, when 
impatience companions her. 

(Isabel and Lily sit down on the floor \ and 
fold their hands. The others follow ttieir 
example?) 

Good children ! but that's not quite the way of it, 
neither. Folded hands are not necessarily resigned 
ones. The Patience who really smiles at grief usually 
stands, or walks, or even runs : she seldom sits ; 
though she may sometimes have to do it, for many 
a day, poor thing, by monuments ; or like Chaucer's, 
' with face pale, upon a hill of sand.' But we are 
not reduced to that to-day. Suppose we use this 
calamitous forenoon to choose the shapes we are to 
crystallise into ? we know nothing about them yet. 



62 The Crystal Orders. 

( The pictures of resignation rise from the floor, 
not in the paticntest manner. General 
applause.) 

Mary {with one or two others). The very thing 
we wanted to ask you about ! 

Lily. We looked at the books about crystals, 
but they are so dreadful. 

L. Well, Lily, we must go through a little dread- 
fulness, that's a fact : no road to any good knowledge 
is wholly among the lilies and the grass ; there is 
rough climbing to be done always. But the crystal- 
books are a little too dreadful, most of them, I 
admit ; and we shall have to be content with very 
little of their help. You know, as you cannot stand 
on each other's heads, you can only make yourselves 
into the sections of crystals, — the figures they show 
when they are cut through ; and we will choose some 
that will be quite easy. You shall make diamonds 
of yourselves 

Isabel. Oh, no, no ! we won't be diamonds, 
please. 

L. Yes, you shall, Isabel ; they are very pretty 
things, if the jewellers, and the kings and queens, 
would only let them alone. You shall make diamonds 
of yourselves, and rubies of yourselves, and emeralds ; 
and Irish diamonds ; two of these — with Lily in the 
middie of one, which will be very orderly, of course ; 



The Crystal Orders, 63 

and Kathleen in the middle of the other, for which 
we will hope the best ; — and you shall make Derby- 
shire spar of yourselves, and Iceland spar, and gold, 
and silver, and — Quicksilver there's enough of in 
you, without any making. 

Mary. Now, you know, the children will be 
getting quite wild : we must really get pencils and 
paper, and begin properly. 

L. Wait a minute, Miss Mary ; I think, as we've 
the schoolroom clear to-day, I'll try to give you 
some notion of the three great orders or ranks of 
crystals, into which all the others seem more or 
less to fall. We shall only want one figure a day, 
in the playground ; and that can be drawn in a 
minute ; but the general idea had better be fastened 
first. I must show you a great many minerals ; 
so let me have three tables wheeled into the three 
windows, that we may keep our specimens separate ; 
— we will keep the three orders of crystals on sepa- 
rate tables. 

{First Interlude, of pushing and pulling, and 
spreading of baize covers. VIOLET, not par- 
ticidarly minding what she is about, gets her- 
self jammed into a corner, and bid to stand 
out of the ivay ; on zvJiicli, she devotes herself 
to meditation?) 
VIOLET (after interval of meditation). How 



64 The Crystal Orders, 

strange it is that everything seems to divide into 
threes ! 

L. Everything doesn't divide into threes. Ivy 
won't, though shamrock will ; and daisies won't, 
though lilies will. 

Violet. But all the nicest things seem to divide 
into threes. 

L. Violets won't. 

Violet. No ; I should think not, indeed ! But 
I mean the great things. 

L. I've always heard the globe had four quarters. 

Isabel. Well ; but you know you said it hadn't 
any quarters at all. So mayn't it really be divided 
into three ? 

L. If it were divided into no more than three, on 
the outside of it, Isabel, it would be a fine world to 
live in ; and if it were divided into three in the inside 
of it, it would soon be no world to live in at all. 

Dora. We shall never get to the crystals, at this 
rate. {Aside to Mary.) He will get off into political 
economy before we know where we are. {Aloud.) 
But the crystals are divided into three, then ? 

L. No ; but there are three general notions by 
which we may best get hold of them. Then between 
these notions there are other notions. 

Lily {alarmed.) A great many ? And shall we 
have to learn them all ? 



The Crystal Orders. 65 

L. More than a great many — a quite infinite 
many. So you cannot learn them all. 

Lily {greatly relieved). Then may we only learn 
the three ? 

L. Certainly ; unless, when you have got those 
three notions, you want to have some more notions ; 
— which would not surprise me. But we'll try for 
the three, first. Katie, you broke your coral neck- 
lace this morning ? 

Kathleen. Oh, who told you ? It was in 
jumping. I'm so sorry ! 

L. I'm very glad. Can you fetch me the beads 
of it? 

Kathleen. I've lost some ; here are the rest in 
my pocket, if I can only get them out. 

L. You mean to get them out some day, I 
suppose ; so try now. I want them. 

(Kathleen empties her pocket on the floor. 
The beads disperse. The School disperses also. 
Second Interlude — hunting pieced) 

L. {after waiting patiently for a quarter of an 
hour, to Isabel, who comes up from under the table 
with her hair all about her ears, and the last find- 
able beads in her hand?) Mice are useful little 
things sometimes. Now, mousie, I want all those 
beads crystallised. How many ways are there of 
putting them in order ? 

5 



66 The Crystal Orders. 

Isabel. Well, first one would string them, I 
suppose ? 

L. Yes, that's the first way. You cannot string 
ultimate atoms ; but you can put them in a row, and 
then they fasten themselves together, somehow, into 
a long rod or needle. We will call these ' Needle- 
crystals.' What would be the next way ? 

Isabel. I suppose as we are to get together in the 
playground, when it stops raining, in different shapes? 

L. Yes ; put the beads together then, in the 
simplest form you can, to begin with. Put them 
into a square, and pack them close. 

ISABEL {after careful endeavour). I can't get them 
closer. 

L. That will do. Now you may see beforehand, 
that if you try to throw yourselves into square in 
this confused way, you will never know your places ; 
so you had better consider every square as made of 
rods, put side by side. Take four beads of equal 
size, first, Isabel ; put them into a little square. 
That, you may consider as made up of two rods of 
two beads each. Then you can make a square a size 
larger, out of three rods of three. Then the next 
square may be a size larger. How many rods, Lily? 

Lily. Four rods of four beads each, I suppose. 

L. Yes, and then five rods of five, and so on. 
But now, look here ; make another square of four 



The Crystal Oi'ders. 67 

beads again. You see they leave a little opening in 
the centre. 

ISABEL (pics king two opposite ones closer together). 
Now they don't. 

L. No ; but now it isn't a square ; and by push- 
ing the two together you have pushed the two others 
farther apart. 

Isabel. And yet, somehow, they all seem closer 
than they were ! 

L. Yes ; for before, each of them only touched 
two of the others, but now each of the two in the 
middle touches the other three. Take away one of 
the outsiders, Isabel : now you have three in a 
triangle — the smallest triangle you can make out of 
the beads. Now put a rod of three beads on at one 
side. So, you have a triangle of six beads ; but just 
the shape of the first one. Next a rod of four on the 
side of that ; and you have a triangle of ten beads : 
then a rod of five on the side of that : and you have 
a triangle of fifteen. Thus you have a square with 
five beads on the side, and a triangle with five 
beads on the side ; equal-sided, therefore, like the 
square. So, however few or many you may be, you 
may soon learn how to crystallise quickly into these 
two figures, which are the foundation of form in the 
commonest, and therefore actually the most im- 
portant, as well as in the rarest, and therefore, 



68 The Crystal Orders. 

by our esteem, the most important, minerals of the 
world. Look at this in my hand. 

Violet. Why, it is leaf gold ! 

L. Yes ; but beaten by no man's hammer ; or 
rather, not beaten at all, but woven. Besides, feel 
the weight of it. There is gold enough there to gild 
the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten thin. 

Violet. How beautiful ! And it glitters like a 
leaf covered with frost. 

L. You only think it so beautiful because you 
know it is gold. It is not prettier, in reality, than a 
bit of brass : for it is Transylvanian gold ; and they 
say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who 
is always wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys 
all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how 
that may be : but the silver always is in the gold ; 
and if he does it, it's very provoking of him, for no 
gold is woven so fine anywhere else. 

MARY {who has been looking through Iter magnify- 
ing glass). But this is not woven. This is all made 
of little triangles. 

L. Say ' patched,' then, if you must be so par- 
ticular. But if you fancy all those triangles, small 
as they are (and many of them are infinitely small), 
made up again of rods, and those of grains, as we 
built our great triangle of the beads, what word 
will you take for the manufacture ? 



The Crystal Orders. 69 

MAY. There's no word — it is beyond words. 

L. Yes ; and that would matter little, were it not 
beyond thoughts too. But, at all events, this yellow 
leaf of dead gold, shed, not from the ruined wood- 
lands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to re- 
member the second kind of crystals, Leaf- crystals, or 
Foliated-crystals ; though I show you the form in gold 
first only to make a strong impression on you, for 
gold is not generally, or characteristically, crystallised, 
in leaves ; the real type of foliated crystals is this 
thing, Mica ; which if you once feel well, and break 
well, you will always know again ; and you will often 
have occasion to know it, for you will find it every- 
where, nearly, in hill countries. 

Kathleen. If we break it well ! May we 
break it ? 

L. To powder, if you like. 

(Surrenders plate of brown mica to public 
investigation. Third Interlude. It sustains 
severely philosophical treatme?it at all hands.) 

FLORRIE {to zvhom the last fragments have de- 
scended). Always leaves, and leaves, and nothing 
but leaves, or white dust ! 

L. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves. 
{Shows them to FLORRIE throtigh magnifying 
glass) 

ISABEL {peeping over Florrie's shoulder). But 



Jo The Crystal Orders. 

then this bit under the glass looks like that bit out 
of the glass. If we could break this bit under the 
glass, what would it be like ? 

L. It would be all leaves still. 

Isabel. And then if we broke those again ? 

L. All less leaves still. 

Isabel {impatient). And if we broke them again, 
and again, and again, and again, and again ? 

L. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, 
if you could only see it. Notice that the little 
flakes already differ somewhat from the large ones ; 
because I can bend them up and down, and they 
stay bent ; while the large flake, though it bent 
easily a little way, sprang back when you let it go, 
and broke, when you tried to bend it far. And a 
large mass would not bend at all. 

Mary. Would that leaf gold separate into finer 
leaves, in the same way ? 

L. No ; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a 
characteristic specimen of a foliated crystallisation. 
The little triangles are portions of solid crystals, and 
so they are in this, which looks like a black mica ; but 
you see it is made up of triangles, like the gold, and 
stands, almost accurately, as an intermediate link, 
in crystals, between mica and gold. Yet this is the 
commonest, as gold the rarest, of metals. 

MARY. Is it iron ? I never saw iron so .bright. 



The Crystal Orders. 71 

L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallised : from its 
resemblance to mica, it is often called micaceous iron. 

Kathleen. May we break this too ? 

L. No, for I could not easily get such another 
crystal ; besides, it would not break like the mica ; it 
is much harder. But take the glass again, and look 
at the fineness of the jagged edges of the triangles 
where they lap over each other. The gold has the 
same : but you see them better here, terrace above 
terrace, countless, and in successive angles, like 
superb fortified bastions. 

May. But all foliated crystals are not made of 
triangles ? 

L. Far from it ; mica is occasionally so, but 
usually of hexagons ; and here is a foliated crystal 
made of squares, which will show you that the leaves 
of the rock-land have their summer green, as well as 
their autumnal gold. 

Florrie. Oh! oh! oh! {jumps for joy). 

L. Did you never see a bit of green leaf, before, 
Florrie ? 

Florjrie. Yes, but never so bright as that, and 
not in a stone. 

L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in 
sunshine after a shower, you will find they are much 
brighter than that ; and surely they are none the 
worse for being on stalks instead of in stones ? 



72 The Crystal Orders. 

FLORRIE. Yes, but then there are so many of 
them, one never looks, I suppose. 

L. Now you have it, Florrie. 

Violet (sighing). There are so many beautiful 
things we never see ! 

L. You need not sigh for that, Violet ; but I will 
tell you what we should all sigh for, — that there are 
so many ugly things we never see. 

Violet. But we don't want to see ugly things ! 

L. You had better say, * We don't want to suffer 
them.' You ought to be glad in thinking how much 
more beauty God has made, than human eyes can 
ever see ; but not glad in thinking how much more 
evil man has made, than his own soul can ever con- 
ceive, — much more, than his hands can ever heal. 

Violet. I don't understand ; — how is that like 
the leaves ? 

L. The same law holds in our neglect of multi- 
plied pain, as in our neglect of multiplied beauty. 
Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an inch of a 
green leaf in a brown stone ; and takes more notice 
of it than of all the green in the wood : ^nd you, 
or I, or any of us, would be unhappy if any single 
human creature beside us were in sharp pain ; but 
we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men 
being killed, and of women and children dying of 
hunger, faster than the leaves strew the brooks in 



The Crystal Orders. 73 

Vallombrosa ; — and then go out to play croquet, as 
if nothing had happened. 

May. But we do not see the people being killed 
or dying. 

L. You did not see your brother, when you got 
the telegram the other day, saying he was ill, May ; 
but you cried for him ; and played no croquet. But 
we cannot talk of these things now ; and what is 
more, you must let me talk straight on, for a little 
while ; and ask no questions till I've done ; for we 
branch (' exfoliate,' I should say, mineralogically) 
always into something else, — though that's my 
fault more than yours ; but I must go straight on 
now. You have got a distinct notion, I hope, of 
leaf-crystals ; and you see the sort of look they 
have ; you can easily remember that ' folium ' is 
Latin for a leaf, and that the separate flakes of 
mica, or any other such stones, are called 'folia;' 
but, because mica is the most characteristic of these 
stones, other things that are like it in structure 
are called ' micas ; ' thus we have Uran-mica, which 
is the green leaf I showed you ; and Copper-mica, 
which is another like it, made chiefly of copper : 
and this foliated iron is called 'micaceous iron.' You 
have then these two great orders, Needle-crystals, 
made (probably) of grains in rows ; and Leaf-crys- 
tals, made (probably) of needles interwoven ; now, 



74 The Crystal Orders. 

lastly, there are crystals of a third order, in heaps, 
or knots, or masses, which may be made, either of 
leaves laid one upon another, or of needles bound 
like Roman fasces ; and mica itself, when it is well 
crystallised, puts itself into such masses, as if to show 
us how others are made. Her: is a brown six-sided 
crystal, quite as beautifully chis:lled at the sides as 
any castle tower ; but you see it is entirely built of 
folia of mica, one laid above another, which break 
away the moment I touch the edge with my knife. 
Now, here is another hexagonal tower, of just the 
same size and colour, which I want you to compare 
with the mica carefully ; but as I cannot wait for you 
to do it just now, I must tell you quickly what 
main differences to look for. First, you will feel it 
is far heavier than the mica. Then, though its 
surface looks quite micaceous in the folia of it, 
when you try them with the knife, you will find 
you cannot break them away 

Kathleen. May I try ? 

L. Yes, you mistrusting Katie. Here's my strong 
knife for you. {Experimental pause. Kathleen 
doing her best?) You'll have that knife shutting on 
your finger presently, Kate ; and I don't know a 
girl who would like less to have her hand tied up 
for a week. 

KATHLEEN {who also does not like to be beaten 



The Crystal Orders. 75 

— giving up the knife despondently). What can the 
nasty hard thing be ? 

L. It is nothing but indurated clay, Kate : very 
hard set certainly, yet not so hard as it might be. If 
it were thoroughly well crystallised, you would see 
none of those micaceous fractures ; and the stone 
would be quite red and clear, all through. 

Kathleen. Oh, cannot you show us one ? 

L. Egypt can, if you ask her; she has a beautiful 
one in the clasp of her favourite bracelet. 

Kathleen. Why, that's a ruby ! 

L. Well, so is that thing you've been scratch- 
ing at. 

Kathleen. My goodness ! 

{Takes up the stone again, very delicately ; and 
drops it. General consternation^) 

L. Never mind, Katie ; you might drop it from the 
top of the house, and do it no harm. But though you 
really are a very good girl, and as good-natured as 
anybody can possibly be, remember, you have your 
faults, like other people ; and, if I were you, the next 
time I wanted to assert anything energetically, I 
would assert it by ' my badness,' not 'my goodness.' 

Kathleen. Ah, now, it's too bad of you ! 

L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my 'too- 
badness.' But you may as well pick up the ruby, 
now you have dropped it ; and look carefully at the 



j6 The Crystal Orders. 

beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its surface : 
and here is a pretty white sapphire (essentially the 
same stone as the ruby), in which you will see 
the same lovely structure, like the threads of the 
finest white cobweb. I do not know what is the 
exact method of a ruby's construction, but you see 
by these lines, what fine construction there is, even 
in this hardest of stones (after the diamond), which 
usually appears as a massive lump or knot. There 
is therefore no real mineralogical distinction between 
needle crystals and knotted crystals, but, practically, 
crystallised masses throw themselves into one of the 
three groups we have been examining to-day ; and 
appear either as Needles, as Folia, or as Knots; when 
they are in needles (or fibres), they make the stones 
or rocks formed out of them 'fibrous;' when they 
are in folia, they make them ' foliated ; ' when they 
are in knots (or grains), 'granular? Fibrous rocks are 
comparatively rare, in mass ; but fibrous minerals 
are innumerable ; and it is often a question which 
really no one but a young lady could possibly settle, 
whether one should call the fibres composing them 
' threads ' or ' needles.' Here is amianthus, for in- 
stance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton 
thread you ever sewed with ; and here is sulphide 
of bismuth, with sharper points and brighter lustre 
than your finest needles have ; and fastened in 



The Crystal Orders. yy 

white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest 
lace ; and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks 
like mere purple wool, but it is all of purple needle 
crystals ; and here is red oxide of copper (you must 
not breathe on it as you look, or you may blow some 
of the films of it off the stone), which is simply a 
woven tissue of scarlet silk. However, these finer 
thread forms are comparatively rare, while the bolder 
and needle-like crystals occur constantly ; so that, I 
believe, ' Needle-crystal ' is the best word, (the grand 
one is ' Acicular crystal,' but Sibyl will tell you it is 
all the same, only less easily understood ; and there- 
fore more scientific). Then the Leaf- crystals, as I 
said, form an immense mass of foliated rocks ; and 
the Granular crystals, which are of many kinds, form 
essentially granular, or granitic and porphyritic rocks ; 
and it is always a point of more interest to me (and 
I think will ultimately be to you), to consider the 
causes which force a given mineral to take any one 
of these three general forms, than what the peculiar 
geometrical limitations are, belonging to its own 
crystals.* It is more interesting to me, for instance, 
to try and find out why the red oxide of copper, 
usually crystallising in cubes or octahedrons, makes 
itself exquisitely, out of its cubes, into this red silk 
in one particular Cornish mine, than what are the 



78 The Crystal Orders. 

absolutely necessary angles of the octahedron, which 
is its common form. At all events, that mathemati- 
cal part of crystallography is quite beyond girls' 
strength ; but these questions of the various tempers 
and manners of crystals are not only comprehensible 
by you, but full of the most curious teaching for you. 
For in the fulfilment, to the best of their power, of 
their adopted form under given circumstances, there 
are conditions entirely resembling those of human 
virtue ; and indeed expressible under no term so 
proper as that of the Virtue, or Courage,, of crystals : 
— which, if you are not afraid of the crystals making 
you ashamed of yourselves, we will try to get some 
notion of, to-morrow. But it will be a bye-lecture, 
and more about yourselves than the minerals. Don't 
come unless you like. 

Mary. I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed 
of ourselves ; but we'll come, for all that. 

L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these 
needle, or thread crystals, and those on the other two 
tables, with magnifying glasses ; and see what thoughts 
will come into your little heads about them. For the 
best thoughts are generally those which come with- 
out being forced, one does not know how. And so 
I hope you will get through your wet day patiently. 



LECTURE V. 

CR YS TA L VI R TUES. 



LECTURE V. 

CRYSTAL VIRTUES. 

A quiet talk, in the afternoon y by the sunniest window of 
the Drawi?ig-room. Present, Florrie, Isabel, May, 
Lucilla, Kathleen, Dora, Mary, a?id so?ne others, 
who have saved time for the bye-Lecture. 

L. So you have really come, like good girls, to 
be made ashamed of yourselves ? 

DORA (very meekly). No, we needn't be made so ; 
we always are. 

L. Well, I believe that's truer than most pretty 
speeches : but you know, you saucy girl, some people 
have more reason to be so than others. Are you 
sure everybody is, as well as you ? 

The General Voice. Yes, yes ; everybody. 
L. What! Florrie ashamed of herself? 

(FLORRIE hides behind the curtain) 
L. And Isabel ? 

(ISABEL hides under the table) 
L. And May ? 

(May runs into the corner behind the piano) 

6 



82 Crystal Virtues. 

L. And Lucilla ? 

(LuciLLA hides her face in tier hands.) 

L. Dear, dear ; but this will never do. I shall 
have to tell you of the faults of the crystals, instead 
of virtues, to put you in heart again. 

May [coming out of her corner). Oh ! have the 
crystals faults, like us ? 

L. Certainly, May. Their best virtues are shown 
in fighting their faults. And some have a great 
many faults ; and some are very naughty crystals 
indeed. 

FLORRIE {from behind her curtain). As naughty 
as me ? 

ISABEL {peeping from under the table cloth). Or 
me ? 

L. Well, I don't know. They never forget their 
syntax, children, when once they've been taught it. 
But I think some of them are, on the whole, worse 
than any of you. Not that it's amiable of you to 
look so radiant, all in a minute, on that account. 

DORA. Oh ! but it's so much more comfortable. 
{Everybody seems to recover their spirits. Eclipse 
of FLORRIE and ISABEL terminates}) 

L. What kindly creatures girls are, after all, to 
their neighbours' failings ! I think you may be 
ashamed of yourselves, indeed, now, children ! I 
can tell you, you shall hear of the highest crystalline 



Crystal Virtttes. 83 

merits that I can think of to-day : and I wish there 
were more of them ; but crystals have a limited, 
though a stern, code of morals ; and their essential 
virtues are but two ; — the first is to be pure, and the 
second to be well shaped. 

Mary. Pure ! Does that mean clear — trans- 
parent ? 

L. No ; unless in the case of a transparent sub- 
stance. You cannot have a transparent crystal of 
gold ; but you may have a perfectly pure one, 

Isabel. But you said that it was the shape that 
made things be crystals ; therefore oughtn't their 
shape to be their first virtue, not their second ? 

L. Right, you troublesome mousie. But I call 
their shape only their second virtue, because it 
depends on time and accident, and things which the 
crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly, or 
shaken, it must take what shape it can ; but it seems 
as if even then, it had in itself the power of rejecting 
impurity, if it has crystalline life enough. Here is 
a crystal of quartz, well enough shaped in its way ; 
but it seems to have been languid and sick at heart ; 
and some white milky substance has got into it, and 
mixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the 
quartz quite yellow, if you hold it up to the light, 
and milky blue on the surface. Here is another, 
broken into a thousand separate facets, and out of all 



84 Crystal Virtues. 

traceable shape ; but as pure as a mountain spring. 
I like this one best. 

The Audience. So do I — and I — and I. 

Mary. Would a crystallographer ? 

L. I think so. He would find many more laws 
curiously exemplified in the irregularly grouped but 
pure crystal. But it is a futile question, this of first 
or second. Purity is in most cases a prior, if not a 
nobler, virtue ; at all events it is most convenient to 
think about it first. 

MARY. But what ought we to think about it ? 
Is there much to be thought — I mean, much to 
puzzle one ? 

L. I don't know what you call ' much/ It is a 
long time since I met with anything in which there 
was little. There's not much in this, perhaps. The 
crystal must be either dirty or clean — and there's an 
end. So it is with one's hands, and with one's heart ; 
— only you can wash your hands without changing 
them, but not hearts, nor crystals. On the whole, 
while you are young, it will be as well to take care 
that your hearts don't want much washing ; for they 
may perhaps need wringing also, when they do. 

{Audience doubtful and uncomfortable. LUCILLA 
at last takes courage') 

Lucilla. Oh ! but surely, sir, we cannot make 
our hearts clean ? 



Crystal Virtues, 85 

L. Not easily, Lucilla ; so you had better keep 
them so, when they are. 

Lucilla. When they are ! But, sir 

L. Well ? 

Lucilla. Sir — surely — are we not told that 
they are all evil ? 

L. Wait a little, Lucilla : that is difficult ground 
you are getting upon ; and we must keep to our 
crystals, till at least we understand what their good 
and evil consist in ; they may help us afterwards to 
some useful hints about our own. I said that their 
goodness consisted chiefly in purity of substance, and 
perfectness of form : but those are rather the effects 
of their goodness, than the goodness itself. The in- 
herent virtues of the crystals, resulting in these outer 
conditions, might really seem to be best described in 
the words we should use respecting living creatures — 
■ force of heart ' and ' steadiness of purpose.' There 
seem to be in some crystals, from the beginning, an 
unconquerable purity of vital power, and strength of 
crystal spirit. Whatever dead substance, unacceptant 
of this energy, comes in their way, is either rejected, or 
forced to take some beautiful subordinate form ; the 
purity of the crystal remains unsullied, and every 
atom of it bright with coherent energy. Then the 
second condition is, that from the beginning of its 
whole structure, a fine crystal seems to have 



86 Crystal Virtues. 

determined that it will be of a certain size and of a 
certain shape ; it persists in this plan, and completes 
it. Here is a perfect crystal of quartz for you. It is 
of an unusual form, and one which it might seem 
very difficult to build — a pyramid with convex sides, 
composed of other minor pyramids. But there is 
not a flaw in its contour throughout ; n,ot one of its 
myriads of component sides but is as bright as a 
jeweller's faceted work (and far finer, if you saw it 
close). The crystal points are as sharp as javelins ; 
their edges will cut glass with a touch. Anything 
more resolute, consummate, determinate in form, can- 
not be conceived. Here, on the other hand, is a 
crystal of the same substance, in a perfectly simple 
type of form — a plain six-sided prism ; but from its 
base to its point, — and it is nine inches long, — it has 
never for one instant made up its mind what thick- 
ness it will have. It seems to have begun by making 
itself as thick as it thought possible with the quantity 
of material at command. Still not being as thick 
as it would like to be, it has clumsily glued on more 
substance at one of its sides. Then it has thinned itself, 
in a panic of economy ; then puffed itself out again; 
then starved one side to enlarge another ; then warped 
itself quite out of its first line. Opaque, rough-sur- 
faced, jagged on the edge, distorted in the spine, it 
exhibits a quite human image of decrepitude and 



Crystal Virtues. 87 

dishonour ; but the worst of all the signs of its de- 
cay and helplessness is that, half-way up, a parasite 
crystal, smaller, but just as sickly, has rooted itself 
in the side of the larger one, eating out a cavity 
round its root, and then growing backwards, or down- 
wards, contrary to the direction of the main crystal. 
Yet I cannot trace the least difference in purity of 
substance between the first most noble stone, and 
this ignoble and dissolute one. The impurity of 
the last is in its will, or want of will. 

Mary. Oh, if we could but understand the 
meaning of* it all ! 

L. We can understand all that is good for us. It 
is just as true for us, as for the crystal, that the noble- 
ness of life depends on its consistency, — clearness 
of purpose, — quiet and ceaseless energy. All doubt, 
and repenting, and botching, and retouching, and 
wondering what it will be best to do next, are 
vice, as well as misery. 

Mary {muck wondering). But must not one re- 
pent when one does wrong, and hesitate when one 
can't see one's way ? 

L. You have no business at all to do wrong ; nor 
to get into any way that you cannot see. Your 
intelligence should always be far in advance of your 
act. Whenever you do not know what you are about, 
you are sure to be doing wrong. 



88 Crystal Virtues. 

Kathleen. Oh, dear, but I never know what I 
am about ! 

L. Very true, Katie, but it is a great deal to know 
if you know that. And you find that you have done 
wrong afterwards ; and perhaps some day you may 
begin to know, or at least, think, what you are about. 

Isabel. But surely people can't go very wrong 
if they don't know, can they ? I mean, they can't 
be very naughty. They can be wrong, like Kathleen, 
or me, when we make mistakes ; but not wrong in 
the dreadful way. I can't express what I mean ; but 
there are two sorts of wrong, are there not ? 

L. Yes, Isabel ; but you will find that the great 
difference is between kind and unkind wrongs, not 
between meant and unmeant wrong, Very few 
people really do mean to do wrong, — in a deep sense, 
none. They only don't know what they are about. 
Cain did not mean to do wrong when he killed Abel. 

(Isabel draws a deep breath, and opens her eyes 
very zvide.) 

No, Isabel ; and there are countless Cains among 
us now, who kill their brothers by the score a day, 
not only for less provocation than Cain had, but 
for no provocation, — and merely for what they can 
make of their bones, — yet do not think they are 
doing wrong in the least. Then sometimes you have 
the business reversed, as over in America* these last 



Crystal Virtues. 89 

years, where you have seen Abel resolutely killing 
Cain, and not thinking he is doing wrong. The 
great difficulty is always to open people's eyes : to 
touch their feelings, and break their hearts, is easy ; 
the difficult thing is to break their heads. What 
does it matter, as long as they remain stupid, whether 
you change their feelings or not ? You cannot be 
always at their elbow to tell them what is right : 
and they may just do as wrong as before, or 
worse ; and their best intentions merely make the 
road smooth for them, — you know where, children. 
For it is not the place itself that is paved with 
them, as people say so often. You can't pave the 
bottomless pit ; but you may the road to it. 

May. Well, but if people do as well as they can 
see how, surely that is the right for them, isn't it ? 

L. No, May, not a bit of it ; right is right, and 
wrong is wrong. It is only the fool who does wrong, 
and says he ' did it for the best.' And if there's one 
sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks 
harder of than another, it is fools. Their particular 
and chief way of saying * There is no God ' is this of 
declaring that whatever their 'public opinion' may be, 
is right; and that God's opinion is of no consequence. 

May. But surely nobody can always know what 
is right ? 

L. Yes, you always can, for to-day ; and if you do 



90 Crystal Virtues. 

what you see of it to-day, you will see more of it, 
and more clearly, to-morrow. Here, for instance, 
you children are at school, and have to learn French, 
and arithmetic, and music, and several other such 
things. That is your ' right ' for the present ; the 
' right ! for us, your teachers, is to see that you learn 
as much as you can, without spoiling your dinner, 
your sleep, or your play ; and that what you do 
learn, you learn well. You all know when you learn 
with a will, and when you dawdle. There's no doubt 
of conscience about that, I suppose ? 

Violet. No ; but if one wants to read an 
amusing book, instead of learning one's lesson ? 

L. You don't call that a l question,' seriously, 
Violet ? You are then merely deciding whether you 
will resolutely do wrong or not. 

Mary. But, in after life, how many fearful 
difficulties may arise, however one tries to know 
or to do what is right ! 

L. You are much too sensible a girl, Mary, to 
have felt that, whatever you may have seen. A 
great many of young ladies' difficulties arise from 
their falling in love with a wrong person : but 
they have no business to let themselves fall in 
love, till they know he is the right one. 

DORA, How many thousands ought he to have 
a year ? 



Crystal Virtues. 91 

L. {disdaining reply). There are, of course, 
certain crises of fortune when one has to take care 
of one-self ; and mind shrewdly what one is about. 
There is never any real doubt about the path, but 
you may have to walk very slowly. 

Mary. And if one is forced to do a wrong thing 
by some one who has authority over you ? 

L. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong 
thing, for the guilt is in the will : but you may any 
day be forced to do a fatal thing, as you might be 
forced to take poison ; the remarkable law of nature 
in such cases being, that it is always unfortunate you 
who are poisoned, and not the person who gives you 
the dose. It is a very strange law, but it is a law. 
Nature merely sees to the carrying out of the normal 
operation of arsenic. She never troubles herself to 
ask who gave it you. So also you may be starved to 
death, morally as well as physically, by other people's 
faults. You are, on the whole, very good children 
sitting here to-day: — do you think that your goodness 
comes all by your own contriving ? or that you are 
gentle and kind because your dispositions are natu- 
rally more angelic than those of the poor girls who 
are playing, with wild eyes, on the dustheaps in the 
alleys of our great towns ; and who will one day 
fill their prisons, — or, better, their graves ? Heaven 
only knows where they, and we who have cast them 



92 Crystal Virtues. 

there, shall stand at last But the main judgment 
question will be, I suppose, for all of us, ' Did you 
keep a good heart through it ? ' What you were, 
others may answer for ; — what you tried to be, you 
must answer for yourself. Was the heart pure and 
true — tell us that ? 

And so we come back to your sorrowful question, 
Lucilla, which I put aside a little ago. You would 
be afraid to answer that your heart was pure and 
true, would not you ? 
y Lucilla. Yes, indeed, sir. 

L. Because you have been taught that it is all 
evil — ' only evil continually.' Somehow, often as 
people say that, they never seem, to me, to believe 
it. Do you really believe it ? 

Lucilla. Yes, sir ; I hope so. 

L. That you have an entirely bad heart ? 

LUCILLA (a little uncomfortable at tJie substitution 
of the monosyllable for the dissyllable, nevertheless 
persisting in her orthodoxy). Yes, sir. 

L. Florrie, I am sure you are tired ; I never like 
you to stay when you are tired ; but, you know, 
you must not play with the kitten while we're 
talking. 

Florrie. Oh ! but I'm not tired ; and I'm only 
nursing her. She'll be asleep in my lap directly. 

L. Stop ! that puts me in mind of something I 



Crystal Virtues, 93 

had to show you, about minerals that are like hair. 
I want a hair out of Tittie's tail. 

FLORRIE {quite rude> in her surprise, even to the 
point of repeating expressions). Out of Tittie's tail ! 

L. Yes ; a brown one : Lucilla, you can get at 
the tip of it nicely, under Florrie' s arm ; just pull 
one out for me. 

Lucilla. Oh ! but, sir, it will hurt her so ! 

L. Never mind ; she can't scratch you while 
Florrie is holding her. Now that I think of it, you 
had better pull out two. 

LUCILLA. But then she may scratch Florrie ! 
and it will hurt her so, sir ! if you only want brown 
hairs, wouldn't two of mine do ? 

L. Would you really rather pull out your own 
than Tittie's ? 

Lucilla. Oh, of course, if mine will do. 

L. But that's very wicked, Lucilla ! 

LUCILLA. Wicked, sir ? 

L. Yes ; if your heart was not so bad, you would 
much rather pull all the cat's hairs out, than one of 
your own. 

LUCILLA. Oh ! but, sir, I didn't mean bad like 
that. 

L. I believe, if the truth were told, Lucilla, 
you would like to tie a kettle to Tittie's tail, and 
hunt her round the playground. 



94 Crystal Virtues. 

Lucilla. Indeed, I should not, sir. 

L. That's not true, Lucilla ; you know it cannot be. 

Lucilla. Sir ? 

L. Certainly it is not ; — how can you possibly 
speak any truth out of such a heart as you have ? 
It is wholly deceitful. 

Lucilla. Oh ! no, no ; I don't mean that way ; 
I don't mean that it makes me tell lies, quite out. 

L. Only that it tells lies within you ? 

Lucilla. Yes. 

L. Then, outside of it, you know what is true, and 
say so ; and I may trust the outside of your heart ; 
but within, it is all foul and false. Is that the way ? 

Lucilla. I suppose so : I don't understand it, 
quite. 

L. There is no occasion for understanding it; but 
do you feel it ? Are you sure that your heart is 
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ? 

LUCILLA {much relieved by finding herself among 
phrases with which she is acquainted). Yes, sir. 
I'm sure of that 

L. {pensively'). I'm sorry for it, Lucilla. 

Lucilla. So am I, indeed. 

L. What are you sorry with, Lucilla ? 

LUCILLA. Sorry with, sir ? 

L. Yes ; I mean, where do you feel sorry ? in 
your feet ? 






Crystal Virtues. 95 

LUCILLA {laughing a little). No, sir, of course. 

L. In your shoulders, then ? 

LUCILLA. No, sir. 

L. You are sure of that ? Because, I fear, sorrow 
in the shoulders would not be worth much. 

Lucilla. I suppose I feel it in my heart, if I 
really am sorry. 

L. If you really are ! Do you. mean to say that 
you are sure you are utterly wicked, and yet do not 
care ? 

Lucilla. No, indeed ; I have cried about it often. 

L. Well, then, you are sorry in your heart ? 

Lucilla. Yes, when the sorrow is worth any- 
thing. 

L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else 
but there. It is not the crystalline lens of your eyes 
which is sorry, when you cry? 

Lucilla. No, sir, of course. 

L. Then, have you two hearts ; one of which is 
wicked, and the other grieved ? or is one side of it 
sorry for the other side ? 

Lucilla {weary of cross-examination and a little 
vexed). Indeed, sir, you know I can't understand it ; 
but you know how it is written — - another law in my 
members, warring against the law of my mind/ 

L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written ; but I do 
not see that it will help us to know that, if we neither 



96 Crystal Virtues. 

understand what is written, nor feel it. And you will 
not get nearer to the meaning of one verse, if, as 
soon as you are puzzled by it, you escape to another, 
introducing three new words — * law,' ' members,' and 
' mind ' ; not one of which you at present know the 
meaning of; and respecting which, you probably 
never will be much wiser ; since men like Montesquieu 
and Locke have spent great part of their lives in 
endeavouring to explain two of them. 

Lucilla. Oh ! please, sir, ask somebody else. 

L. If I thought anyone else could answer better 
than you, Lucilla, I would : but suppose I try, 
instead, myself to explain your feelings to you ? 

Lucilla. Oh, yes ; please do. 

L. Mind, I say your ' feelings,' not your ' belief.' 
For I cannot undertake to explain anybody's beliefs. 
Still I must try a little, first, to explain the belief 
also, because I want to draw it to some issue. As 
far as I understand what you say, or any one else, 
taught as you have been taught, says, on this matter, 
— you think that there is an external goodness, a 
whited-sepulchre kind of goodness, which appears 
beautiful outwardly, but is within full of unclean- 
ness : a deep secret guilt, of which we ourselves 
are not sensible ; and which can only be seen by 
the Maker of us all. {Approving murmurs from 
audience}) 



Crystal Virtues. 97 

L. Is it not so with the body as well as the soul ? 

{Looked notes of interrogation) 
L. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful thing ? 
{Grave faces, signifying * Certainly not,' and 
1 What next ? ') 
L. And if you all could see in each other, with 
clear eyes, whatever God sees beneath those fair 
faces of yours, you would not like it ? 
{Murmured ' No's') 
L. Nor would it be good for you ? 

{Silenced) 
L. The probability being, that what God does 
not allow you to see, He does not wish you to see ; 
nor even to think of ? 
{Silence prolonged?) 
L. It would not at all be good for you, for 
instance, whenever you were washing your faces, and 
braiding your hair, to be thinking of the shapes of 
the jawbones, and of the cartilage of the nose, and 
of the jagged sutures of the scalp ? 
{Resolutely whispered ' No's.') 
L. Still less, to see through a clear glass the daily 
processes of nourishment and decay ? 
{No.) 
L. Still less, if instead of merely inferior and pre- 
paratory conditions of structure, as in the skeleton, — 
or inferior offices of structure, as in operations of life 

7 



98 Crystal Virtues. • 

and death, — there were actual disease in the body ; 
ghastly and dreadful. You would try to cure it ; 
but having taken such measures as were necessary, 
you would not think the cure likely to be promoted 
by perpetually watching the wounds, or thinking of 
them. On the contrary, you would be thankful for 
every moment of forgetfulness : as, in daily health, 
you must be thankful that your Maker has veiled 
whatever is fearful in your frame under a sweet and 
manifest beauty ; and has made it your duty, and 
your only safety, to rejoice in that, both in yourself 
and in others : — not indeed concealing, or refusing 
to believe in sickness, if it come ; but never dwelling 
on it. 

Now, your wisdom and duty touching soul-sickness 
are just the same. Ascertain clearly what is wrong 
with you ; and so far as you know any means of mend- 
ing it, take those means, and have done ; when you 
are examining yourself, never call yourself merely a 
1 sinner ; ' that is very cheap abuse, and utterly useless. 
You may even get to like it, and be proud of it. 
But call yourself a liar, a coward, a sluggard, a 
glutton, or an evil-eyed, jealous wretch, if you indeed 
find yourself to be in any wise any of these. Take 
steady means to check yourself in whatever fault you 
have ascertained, and justly accused yourself of. And 
as soon as you are in active way of mending, you will 



Crystal Virtues. 99 

be no more inclined to moan over an undefined 
corruption. For the rest, you will find it less easy 
to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining 
virtues. Do not think of your faults ; still less of 
others' faults : in every person who comes near you, 
look for what is good and strong : honour that ; rejoice 
in it; and, as you can, try to imitate it : and your faults 
will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes. 
If, on looking back, your whole life should seem 
rugged as a palm tree stem ; still, never mind, so long 
as it has been growing ; and has its grand green shade 
of leaves, and weight of honeyed fruit, at top. And 
even if you cannot find much good in yourself at last, 
think that it does not much matter to the universe 
either what you were, or arc ; think how many people 
are noble, if you cannot be ; and rejoice in their noble- 
ness. An immense quantity of modern confession 
of sin, even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism ; 
which will rather gloat over its own evil, than lose 
the centralisation of its interest in itself. 

Mary. But then, if we ought to forget ourselves 
so much, how did the old Greek proverb ' Know 
thyself come to be so highly esteemed ? 

L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs ; — 
Apollo's proverb, and the sun's ; — but do you think 
you can know yourself by looking into yourself ? 
Never. You can know what you are, only by 



ioo Crystal Virtues. 

looking out of yourself. Measure your own powers 
with those of others ; compare your own interests 
with those of others ; try to understand what you 
appear to them, as well as what they appear to 
you ; and judge of yourselves, in all things, relatively 
and subordinately ; not positively : starting always 
with a wholesome conviction of the probability that 
there is nothing particular about you. For instance, 
some of you perhaps think you can write poetry. 
Dwell on your own feelings and doings ; — and you 
will soon think yourselves Tenth Muses ; but forget 
your own feelings ; and try, instead, to understand 
a line or two of Chaucer or Dante : and you will 
soon begin to feel yourselves very foolish girls — 
which is much like the fact. 

So, something which befalls you may seem a great 
misfortune ; — you meditate over its effects on you 
personally ; and begin to think that it is a chastise- 
ment, or a warning, or a this or that or the other of 
profound significance ; and that all the angels in 
heaven have left their business for a little while, that 
they may watch its effects on your mind. But give 
up this egotistic indulgence of your fancy ; examine a 
little what misfortunes, greater a thousandfold, are 
happening, every second, to twenty times worthier 
persons : and your self- consciousness will change into 
pity and humility ; a*nd you will know yourself, so 



Crystal Virtues. 101 

far as to understand that ' there hath nothing taken 
thee but what is common to man.' 

Now, Lucilla, these are the practical conclusions 
which any person of sense would arrive at, supposing 
the texts which relate to the inner evil of the heart 
were as many, and as prominent, as they are often 
supposed to be by careless readers. But the way in 
which common people read their Bibles is just like 
the way that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate 
grapes. They polled themselves (it was said), over 
and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What 
fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate. 
So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and 
over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to 
their own spines is Scripture ; and that nothing else 
is. But you can only get the skins of the texts that 
way. If you want their juice, you must press them 
in cluster. Now, the clustered texts about the 
human heart, insist, as a body, not on any inherent 
corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific distinction 
between the bad and the good ones. ' A good man, 
out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth 
that which is good ; and an evil man, out of the evil 
treasure, bringeth forth that which is evil.' ' They on 
the rock are they which, in an honest and good heart, 
having heard the word keep it.' ' Delight thyself in 
the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine 



102 Crystal Virtues. 

heart.' ' The wicked have bent their bow, that they 
may privily shoot at him that is upright in heart* 
And so on ; they are countless, to the same effect. 
And, for all of us, the question is not at all to ascer- 
tain how much or how little corruption there is in 
human nature ; but to ascertain whether, out of all 
the mass of that nature, we are of the sheep or the 
goat breed ; whether we are people of upright heart, 
being shot at, or people of crooked heart, shooting. 
And, of all the texts bearing on the subject, this, 
which is a quite simple and practical order, is the one 
you have chiefly to hold in mind. ' Keep thy heart 
with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.' 

LuciLLA. And yet, how inconsistent the texts 
seem ! 

L. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the universe 
is bound to look consistent to a girl of fifteen ? Look 
up at your own room window ; — you can just see it 
from where you sit, I'm glad that it is left open, as 
it ought to be, on so fine a day. But do you see what 
a black spot it looks, in the sun-lighted wall ? 

Lucilla. Yes, it looks as black as ink. 

L. Yet you know it is a very bright room when 
you are inside of it ; quite as bright as there is any 
occasion for it to be, that its little lady may see to 
keep it tidy. Well, it is very probable, also, that if 
you could look into your heart from the sun's point 



Crystal Virtues. J03 

of view, it might appear a very black hole to you 
indeed: nay, the sun may sometimes think good to 
tell you that it looks so to Him ; but He will come 
into it, and make it very cheerful for you, for all 
that, if you don't put the shutters up. And the one 
question for you, remember, is not ' dark or light ? ' 
but ' tidy or untidy ? ' Look well to your sweeping 
and garnishing ; and be sure it is only the banished 
spirit, or some of the seven wickeder ones at his 
back, who will still whisper to you that it is all 
black. 



LECTURE VI. 
CR YSTAL Q UARRELS. 



LECTURE VI. 

CRYSTAL QUARRELS. 

Full co?iclave, in Schoolroom. There has been a game at 
crystallisation in the morning, of which various account 
has to be rendered. In particular, everybody has to 
explain why they were always where they were not 
i?ite?ided to be. 

L. {having received and considered the report). You 
have got on pretty well, children : but you know 
these were easy figures you have been trying. Wait 
till I have drawn you out the plans of some crystals 
of snow ! 

Mary. I don't think those will be the most diffi- 
cult : they are so beautiful that we shall remember 
our places better ; and then they are all regular, 
and in stars ; it is those twisty oblique ones we are 
afraid of. 

L. Read Carlyle's account of the battle of Leu- 
then, and learn Friedrich's ' oblique order.' You will 
1 get it done for once, I think, provided you can 
march as a pair of compasses would.' But remember, 



108 Crystal Quarrels. 

when you can construct the most difficult single 
figures, you have only learned half the game — 
nothing so much as the half, indeed, as the crystals 
themselves play it. 

Mary. Indeed ; what else is there ? 

L. It is seldom that any mineral crystallises 
alone. Usually two or three, under quite different 
crystalline laws, form together. They do this abso- 
lutely without flaw or fault, when they are in fine 
temper : and observe what this signifies. It signifies 
that the two, or more, minerals of different natures 
agree, somehow, between themselves, how much space 
each will want ; — agree which of them shall give way 
to the other at their junction ; or in what measure 
each will accommodate itself to the other's shape ! 
And then each takes its permitted shape, and allotted 
share of space ; yielding, or being yielded to, as it 
builds, till each crystal has fitted itself perfectly and 
gracefully to its differently-natured neighbour. So 
that, in order to practise this, in even the simplest 
terms, you must divide into two parties, wearing 
diF^rent colours ; each must choose a different figure 
to construct; and you must form one of these figures 
through the other, both going on at the same time. 

Mary. I think we may, perhaps, manage it ; but 
I cannot at all understand how the crystals do. It 
seems to imply so much preconcerting of plan, and 



Crystal Quarrels. 109 

so much giving way to each other, as if they really 
were living. 

L. Yes, it implies both concurrence and compro- 
mise, regulating all wilfulness of design : and, more 
curiously still, the crystals do not always give way 
to each other. They show exactly the same varieties 
of temper that human creatures might. Sometimes 
they yield the required place with perfect grace and 
courtesy ; forming fantastic, but exquisitely finished, 
groups : and sometimes they will not yield at all ; but 
fight furiously for their places, losing all shape and 
honour, and even their own likeness, in the contest. 

MARY. But is not that wholly wonderful ? How 
it is that one never sees it spoken of in books ? 

L. The scientific men are all busy in determining 
the constant laws under which the struggle takes 
place ; these indefinite humours of the elements are 
of no interest to them. And unscientific people 
rarely give themselves the trouble. of thinking at all, 
when they look at stones. Not that it is of much 
use to think ; the more one thinks, the more one 
is puzzled. 

Mary. Surely it is more wonderful than anything 
in botany ? 

L. Everything has its own wonders ; but, given 
the nature of the plant, it is easier to understand 
what a flower will do, and why it does it, than, given 



no Crystal Quarrels. 

anything we as yet know of stone-nature, to under- 
stand what a crystal will do, and why it does it. You 
at once admit a kind of volition and choice, in the 
flower ; but we are not accustomed to attribute any- 
thing of the kind to the crystal. Yet there is, in 
reality, more likeness to some conditions of human 
feeling among stones than among plants. There is a 
far greater difference between kindly-tempered and ill- 
tempered crystals of the same mineral, than between 
any two specimens of the same flower: and the friend- 
ships and wars of crystals depend more definitely and 
curiously on their varieties of disposition, than any 
associations of flowers. Here, for instance, is a good 
garnet, living with good mica ; one rich red, and the 
other silver white : the mica leaves exactly room 
enough for the garnet to crystallise comfortably in ; 
and the garnet lives happily in its little white house ; 
fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell. But here are 
wicked garnets living with wicked mica. See what 
ruin they make of each other ! You cannot tell 
which is which ; the garnets look like dull red stains 
on the crumbling stone. By the way, I never could 
understand, if St. Gothard is a real saint, why he 
can't keep his garnets in better order. These are all 
under his care ; but I suppose there' are too many 
of them for him to look after. The streets of Airola 
are paved with them. 



Crystal Quarrels. in 

May. Paved with garnets ? 

L. With mica-slate and garnets ; I broke this bit 
out of a paving stone. Now garnets and mica are 
natural friends, and generally fond of each other ; 
but you see how they quarrel when they are ill 
brought up. So it is always. Good crystals are 
friendly with almost all other good crystals, however 
little they chance to see of each other, or however 
opposite their habits may be ; while wicked crystals 
quarrel with one another, though they may be 
exactly alike in habits, and see each other con- 
tinually. And of course the wicked crystals quarrel 
with the good ones. 

Isabel. Then do the good ones get angry ? 

L. No, never ; they attend to their own work and 
life ; and live it as well as they can, though they are 
always the sufferers. Here, for instance, is a rock- 
crystal of the purest race and finest temper, who was 
born, unhappily for him, in a bad neighbourhood, 
near Beaufort in Savoy ; and he has had to fight with 
vile calcareous mud all his life. See here, when he 
was but a child, it came down on him, and nearly 
buried him ; a weaker crystal would have died in 
despair ; but he only gathered himself together, like 
Hercules against the serpents, and threw a layer of 
crystal over the clay ; conquered it, — imprisoned it, — 
and lived on. Then, when he was a little older, came 



ii2 Crystal Quarrels. 

more clay ; and poured itself upon him here, at the 
side ; and he has laid crystal over that, and lived on, 
in his purity. Then the clay came on at his angles, 
and tried to cover them, and round them away; but 
upon that he threw out buttress-crystals at his 
angles, all as true to his own central line as chapels 
round a cathedral apse ; and clustered them round 
the clay ; and conquered it again. At last the clay 
came on at his summit, and tried to blunt his summit; 
but he could not endure that for an instant ; and left 
his flanks all rough, but pure ; and fought the clay at 
his crest, and built crest over crest, and peak over 
peak, till the clay surrendered at last ; and here is 
his summit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid 
of alternate clay and crystal, half a foot high ! 

Lily. Oh, how nice of him ! What a dear, brave 
crystal ! But I can't bear to see his flanks all 
broken, and the clay within them. 

L. Yes ; it was an evil chance for him, the being 
born to such contention ; there are some enemies so 
base that even to hold them captive is a kind of 
dishonour. But look, here has been quite a dif- 
ferent kind of struggle : the adverse power has been 
more orderly, and has fought the pure crystal in 
ranks as firm as its own. This is not mere rage and 
impediment of crowded evil : here is a disciplined 
hostility ; army against army. 



Crystal Quarrels. 113 

Lily. Oh, but this is much more beautiful! 

L. Yes, for both the elements have true virtue 
in them ; it is a pity they are at war, but they war 
grandly. 

Mary. But is this the same clay as in the other 
crystal ? 

L. I used the word clay for shortness. In both, 
the enemy is really limestone ; but in the first, dis- 
ordered, and mixed with true clay ; while, here, it is 
nearly pure, and crystallises into its own primitive 
form, the oblique six-sided one, which you know ; 
and out of these it makes regiments ; and then 
squares of the regiments, and so charges the rock 
crystal, literally in square against column. 

Isabel. Please, please, let me see. And what 
does the rock crystal do ? 

L. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing. 
The calcite cuts it through at every charge. Look 
here, — and here ! The loveliest crystal in the whole 
group is hewn fairly into two pieces. 

Isabel. Oh, dear ! but is the calcite harder than 
the crystal then ? 

L. No, softer. Very much softer. 

Mary. But then, how can it possibly cut the 
crystal ? 

L. It did not really cut it, though it passes through 
it. The two were formed together, as I told you ; 

8 



ii4 Crystal Qztarrels. 

but no one knows how. Still, it is strange that this 
hard quartz has in all cases a good-natured way with 
it, of yielding to everything else. All sorts of soft 
things make nests for themselves in it ; and it never 
makes a nest for itself in anything. It has all the 
rough outside work ; and every sort of cowardly and 
weak mineral can shelter itself within it. Look ; 
these are hexagonal plates of mica ; if they were out- 
side of this crystal they would break, like burnt paper ; 
but they are inside of it,- — nothing can hurt them, — 
the crystal has taken them into its very heart, keep- 
ing all their delicate edges as sharp as if they were 
under water, instead of bathed in rock. Here is a 
piece of branched silver : you can bend it with a 
touch of your finger, but the stamp of its every fibre 
is on the rock in which it lay, as if the quartz had 
been as soft as wool. 

Lily. Oh, the good, good quartz ! But does 
it never get inside of anything ? 

L. As it is a little Irish girl who asks, I may 
perhaps answer, without being laughed at, that it 
gets inside of itself sometimes. But I don't remember 
seeing quartz make a nest for itself in anything else. 

ISABEL. Please, there was something I heard you 
talking about, last term, with Miss Mary. I was at 
my lessons, but I heard something about nests ; and 
I thought it was birds' nests ; and I couldn't help 



Crystal Quarrels. 1 1 5 

listening ; and then, I remember, it was about 
1 nests of quartz in granite.' I remember, because 
I was so disappointed ! 

L. Yes, mousie, you remember quite rightly ; 
but I can't tell you about those nests to-day, nor 
perhaps to-morrow : but there's no contradiction 
between my saying then, and now ; I will show 
you that there is not, some day. Will you trust 
me meanwhile ? 

Isabel. Won't I ! 

L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy 
in quartz ; it is on a small scale, but wonderfully 
pretty. Here is nobly born quartz living with a green 
mineral, called epidote ; and they are immense friends. 
Now, you see, a comparatively large and strong quartz- 
crystal, and a very weak and slender little one of 
epidote, have begun to grow, close by each other, and 
sloping unluckily towards each other, so that at last 
they meet. They cannot go on growing together ; the 
quartz crystal is five times as thick, and more than 
twenty times as strong, * as the epidote ; but he stops 
at once, just in the very crowning moment of his 
life, when he is building his own summit ! He lets 
the pale little film of epidote grow right past him ; 

* Quartz is not much harder than epidote ; the strength is 
only supposed to be in some proportion to the squares of the 
diameters. 



1 1 6 Crystal Quarrels. 

stopping his own summit for it ; and he never him- 
self grows any more. 

Lily [after some silence of wonder). But is the 
quartz never wicked then ? 

L. Yes, but the wickedest quartz seems good- 
natured compared to other things. Here are two 
very characteristic examples ; one is good quartz, 
living with good pearlspar, and the other, wicked 
quartz, living with wicked pearlspar. In both, the 
quartz yields to the soft carbonate of iron ; but, in the 
first piece, the iron takes only what it needs of room ; 
and is inserted into the planes of the rock crystal 
with such precision, that you must break it away 
before you can tell whether it really penetrates the 
quartz or not ; while the crystals of iron are per- 
fectly formed, and have a lovely bloom on their 
surface besides. But here, when the two minerals 
quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its surfaces jagged 
and torn to pieces ; and there is not a single iron 
crystal whose shape you can completely trace. But 
the quartz has the worst of it, in both instances. 

Violet. Might we look at that piece of broken 
quartz again, with the weak little film across it ? it 
seems such a strange lovely thing, like the self- 
sacrifice of a human being. 

L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not 
a lovely thing, Violet. It is often a necessary and 



Crystal Quarrels. 117 

noble thing ; but no form nor degree of suicide can 
be ever lovely. 

Violet. But self-sacrifice is not suicide ! 

L. What is it then ? 

Violet. Giving up one's self for another. 

L. Well ; and what do you mean by ' giving up 
one's self ? 

Violet. Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, 
one's time, one's happiness, and so on, to make 
others happy. 

L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, 
who expects you to make him happy in that way. 

Violet {hesitating). In what way ? 

L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your 
feelings, and happiness. 

Violet. No, no, I don't mean that ; but you 
know, for other people, one must. 

L. For people who don't love you, and whom 
you know nothing about ? Be it so ; but how does 
this ' giving up ' differ from suicide then ? 

Violet. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not 
killing one's self? 

L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither is it 
self-sacrifice, but self-culture. But giving up right 
pleasure is. If you surrender the pleasure of walk- 
ing, your foot will wither ; you may as well cut it 
off : if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your 



1 1 8 Crystal Quarrels. 

eyes will soon be unable to bear the light ; you may 
as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself its 
partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and 
you will soon slay. 

VIOLET. But why do you make me think of that 
verse then, about the foot and the eye ? 

L. You are indeed commanded to cut off and 
to pluck out, if foot or eye offend you ; but why 
should they offend you ? 

VIOLET. I don't know; I never quite understood 
that. 

L. Yet it is a sharp order ; one needing to be 
well understood if it is to be well obeyed ! When 
Helen sprained her ankle the other day, you saw 
how strongly it had to be bandaged ; that is to 
say, prevented from all work, to recover it. But 
the bandage was not ' lovely.' 

Violet. No, indeed. 

L. And if her foot had been crushed, or diseased, 
or snake-bitten, instead of sprained, it might have 
been needful to cut it off. But the amputation 
would not have been 'lovely.' 

Violet. No. 

L. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and 
betray you ; — if the light that is in you be darkness, 
and your feet run into mischief, or are taken in the 
snare, — it is indeed time to pluck out, and cut off, I 




- Crystal Quarrels. 119 

think : but, so crippled, you can never be what you 
might have been otherwise. You enter into life, at 
best, halt or maimed ; and the sacrifice is not 
beautiful, though necessary. 

Violet {after a pause). But when one sacrifices 
one's self for others ? 

L. Why not rather others for you ? 

VIOLET. Oh ! but I couldn't bear that. 

L. Then why should they bear it ? 

DORA {bursting in, indignant). And Thermopylae, 
and Protesilaus, and Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de 
Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and Jephthah's daughter? 

L. {sustaining the indignation unmoved). And the 
Samaritan woman's son ? 

Dora. Which Samaritan woman's ? 

L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29. 

Dora {obeys). How horrid ! As if we meant 
anything like that ! 

L. You don't seem to me to know in the least 
what you do mean, children. What practical differ- 
ence is there between ' that,' and what you are 
talking about ? The Samaritan children had no voice 
of their own in the business, it is true ; but neither 
had Iphigenia : the Greek girl was certainly neither 
boiled, nor eaten ; but that only makes a difference 
in the dramatic effect ; not in the principle. 

DORA {biting her lip). Well, then, tell us what we 



120 Crystal Quarrels. 

ought to mean. As if you didn't teach it all to us, 
and mean it yourself, at this moment, more than we 
do, if you wouldn't be tiresome ! 

L. I mean, and always have meant, simply this, 
Dora ; — that the will of God respecting us is that 
we shall live by each other's happiness, and life ; not 
by each other's misery, or death. I made you read 
that verse which so shocked you just now, because 
the relations of parent and child are typical of all 
beautiful human help. A child may have to die for 
its parents ; but the purpose of Heaven is that it 
shall rather live for them ; — that not by sacrifice, 
but by its strength, its joy, its force of being, it shall 
be to them renewal of strength ; and as the arrow 
in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right 
relations. Men help each other by their joy, not by 
their sorrow. They are not intended to slay them- 
selves for each other, but to strengthen themselves 
for each other. And among the many apparently 
beautiful things which turn, through mistaken use, 
to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thought- 
lessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men 
must be named as one of the fatallest They have 
so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere 
suffering, as such ; and foolishly to hope that good 
may be brought by Heaven out of all on which 
Heaven itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may 



Crystal Quarrels. 121 

avoid it, — that they accept pain and defeat as if 
these were their appointed portion ; never under- 
standing that their defeat is not the less to be 
mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies 
than to them. The one thing that a good man has 
to do, and to see done, is justice ; he is neither to 
slay himself nor others causelessly : so far from 
denying himself, since he is pleased by good, he is 
to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. 
And I only wish there were strength, fidelity, and 
sense enough, among the good Englishmen of this 
day, to render it possible for them to band together 
in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of 
heart and hand, the doing of human justice among 
all who came within their sphere. And finally, for 
your own teaching, observe, although there may be 
need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the 
correction of faults of character, the moment the 
character is formed, the self-denial ceases. Nothing 
is really well done, which it costs you pain to do. 

Violet. But surely, sir, you are always pleased 
with us when we try to please others, and not our- 
selves ? ^ 

L. My dear child, in the daily course and disci- 
pline of right life, we must continually and recipro- 
cally submit and surrender in all kind and courteous 
and affectionate ways : and these submissions and 



122 Crystal Quarrels. 

ministries to each other, of which you all know (none 
better) the practice and the preciousness, are as good 
for the yielder as the receiver : they strengthen and 
perfect as much as they soften and refine. But the 
real sacrifice of all our strength, or life, or happiness 
to others (though it may be needed, and though all 
brave creatures hold their lives in their hand, to be 
given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier 
gives his life in battle), is yet always a mournful 
and momentary necessity ; not the fulfilment of the 
continuous law of being. Self-sacrifice which is 
sought after, and triumphed in, is usually foolish ; 
and calamitous in its issue : and by the sentimental 
proclamation and pursuit of it, good people have 
not only made most of their own lives useless, but 
the whole framework of their religion so hollow, that 
at this moment, while the English nation, with its 
lips, pretends to teach every man to ' love his neigh- 
bour as himself/ with its hands and feet it clutches 
and tramples like a wild beast ; and practically lives, 
every soul of it that can, on other people's labour. 
Briefly, the constant duty of every man to his fellows 
is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts ; and 
to strengthen them for the help of others. Do you 
think Titian would have helped the world better 
by denying himself, and not painting : or Casella by 
denying himself, and not singing ? The real virtue 



Crystal Quarrels. 123 

is to be ready to sing the moment people ask us ; as 
he was, even in purgatory. The very word ' virtue ' 
means, not ' conduct,' but ' strength/ vital energy in 
the heart. Were not you reading about that group 
of words beginning with V, — vital, virtuous, vigorous, 
and so on, — in Max Miiller, the other day, Sibyl ? 
Can't you tell the others about it ? 

Sibyl. No, I can't ; will you tell us, please ? 

L. Not now, it is too late. Come to me some 
idle time to-morrow, and I'll tell you about it, if all's 
well. But the gist of it is, children, that you should 
at least know two Latin words ; recollect that 
' mors ' means death, and delaying ; and * vita ' 
means life, and growing : and try always, not to 
mortify yourselves, but to vivify yourselves. 

Violet. But, then, are we not to mortify our 
earthly affections ? and surely we are to sacrifice 
ourselves, at least in God's service, if not in man's ? 

L. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. 
I've given you enough ethics for one talk, I think ! 
Do let us have a little play. Lily, v/hat were you so 
busy about, at the ant-hill in the wood, this morning ? 

Lily. Oh, it was the ants who were busy, not I ; 
I was only trying to help them a little. 

L. And they wouldn't be helped, I suppose ? 

Lily. No, indeed, I can't think why ants are 
always so tiresome, when one tries to help them ! 



124 Crystal Quarrels. 

They were carrying bits of stick, as fast as they 
could, through a piece of grass ; and pulling and 
pushing so hard ; and tumbling over and over, — it 
made one quite pity them ; so I took some of the 
bits of stick, and carried them forward a little, where 
I thought they wanted to put them ; but instead of 
being pleased, they left them directly, and ran about 
looking quite angry and frightened ; and at last ever 
so many of them got up my sleeves, and bit me all 
over, and I had to come away. 

L. I couldn't think what you were about. I saw 
your French grammar lying on the grass behind you, 
and thought perhaps you had gone to ask the ants 
to hear you a French verb. 

Isabel. Ah ! but you didn't, though ! 

L. Why not, Isabel ? I knew well enough, 
Lily couldn't learn that verb by herself. 

Isabel. No ; but the ants couldn't help her. 

L. Are you sure the ants could not have helped 
you, Lily ? 

Lily {thinking). I ought to have learned some- 
thing from them, perhaps. 

L. But none of them left their sticks to help 
you through the irregular verb ? 

Lily. No, indeed. {Laughing with some others.) 

L. What are you laughing at, children ? I can- 
not see why the ants should not have left their tasks 



Crystal Quarrels. 125 

to help Lily in hers, — since here is Violet thinking 
she ought to leave her tasks, to help God in His. 
Perhaps, however, she takes Lily's more modest view, 
and thinks only that ' He ought to learn something 
from her.' 

{Tears in Violet's eyes.) 

DORA {scarlet). It's too bad — it's a shame : — 
poor Violet ! 

L. My dear children, there's no reason why one 
should be so red, and the other so pale, merely 
because you are made for a moment to feel the 
absurdity of a phrase which you have been taught to 
use, in common with half the religious world. There 
is but one way in which man can ever help God — 
that is, by letting God help him : and there is no 
way in which His name is more guiltily taken in 
vain than by calling the abandonment of our own 
work, the performance of His. 

God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places 
where He wishes us to be employed ; and that em- 
ployment is truly ' our Father's business.' He chooses 
work for every creature which will be delightful to 
them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us 
always strength enough, and sense enough, for what 
He wants us to do ; if we either tire ourselves or 
puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may 
always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we 



126 Crystal Quarrels. 

cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy our- 
selves. Now, away with you, children ; and be as 
happy as you can. And when you cannot, at least 
don't plume yourselves upon pouting. 



LECTURE VII. 

HOME VIRTUES. 



LECTURE VII. 

HOME VIRTUES. 

By the fireside ; in the Drawing-room. Evening. 

Dora. Now, the curtains are drawn, and the 
fire's bright, and here's your armchair — and you're 
to tell us all about what you promised. 

L. All about what ? 

DORA. All about virtue. 

Kathleen. Yes, and about the words that 
begin with V. 

L. I heard you singing about a word that begins 
with V, in the playground, this morning, Miss Katie. 

Kathleen. Me singing ! 

May. Oh tell us — tell us. 

L. ' Vilikens and his ' 

Kathleen {stopping his mouth). Oh ! please 
don't. Where were you ? 

Isabel. I'm sure I wish I had known where 
he was ! We lost him among the rhododendrons, 
and I don't know where he got to ; oh, you naughty 
- — naughty — {climbs on his knee). 

9 



1 30 Home Virtues. 

DORA. Now, Isabel, we really want to talk. 

L. / don't. 

DORA. Oh, but you must. You promised, you 
know. 

L. Yes, if all was well ; but all's ill. I'm tired, 
and cross ; and I won't. 

Dora. You're not a bit tired, and you're not 
crosser than two sticks ; and we'll make you talk, if 
you were crosser than six. Come here, Egypt ; and 
get on the other side of him. 

(EGYPT takes up a commanding position near 
the hearth brush?) 

Dora {reviewing her forces}. Now, Lily, come 
and sit on the rug in front. 

(Lily does as she is bid.) 

L. {seeing he has no chance against the odds). Well, 
well ; but I'm really tired. Go and dance a little, 
first ; and let me think. 

DORA. No ; you mustn't think. You will be 
wanting to make us think next ; that will be tire- 
some. 

L. Well, go and dance first, to get quit of think- 
ing : and then I'll talk as long as you like. 

Dora. - Oh, but we can't dance to-night. There 
isn't time ; and we want to hear about virtue. 

L. Let me see a little of it first. Dancing is 
the first of girls' virtues. 



Home Virtues. 131 

Egypt. Indeed ! And the second ? 

L. Dressing. 

EGYPT. Now, you needn't say that ! I mended 
that tear the first thing before breakfast this morning. 

L. I cannot otherwise express the ethical prin- 
ciple, Egypt : whether you have mended your gown 
or not. 

DORA. Now don't be tiresome. We really must 
hear about virtue, please : seriously. 

L. Am not I telling you about it, as fast as I 
can ? 

Dora. What ! the first of girls' virtues is dancing ? 

L. More accurately, it is wishing to dance, and 
not wishing to tease, nor to hear about virtue. 

Dora {to Egypt). Cross ? 

Egypt. How many balls must we go to in the 
season, to be perfectly virtuous ? 

L. As many as you can without losing your 
colour. But I did not say you should wish to go 
to balls. I said you should be always wanting to 
dance. 

Egypt. So we do ; but everybody says it is very 
wrong. 

L. Why, Egypt, I thought — 

' There was a lady once, 
That would not be a queen, — that would she not, 
For all the mud in Egypt.' 



132 Home Virtues. 

You were complaining the other day of having to go 
out a great deal oftener than you liked. 

Egypt. Yes, so I was ; but then, it isn't to dance. 
There's no room to dance : it's — {Pausing to consider 
what it is for). 

L. It is only to be seen, I suppose. Well, there's 
no harm in that. Girls ought to like to be seen. 

DORA {her eyes flashing). Now, you don't mean 
that ; and you're too provoking ; and we won't dance 
again, for a month. 

L. It will answer every purpose of revenge, Dora, 
if you only banish me to the library ; and dance by 
yourselves ; but I don't think Jessie and Lily will 
agree to that. You like me to see you dancing, 
don't you, Lily ? 

LlLY. Yes, certainly, — when we do it rightly. 

L. And besides, Miss Dora, if young ladies really 
do not want to be seen, they should take care not to 
let their eyes flash when they dislike what people say ; 
and, more than that, it is all nonsense from beginning 
to end, about not wanting to be seen. I don't know 
any more tiresome flower in the borders than your 
especially ' modest ' snowdrop ; which one always has 
to stoop down and take all sorts of tiresome trouble 
with, and nearly break its poor little head off, before 
you can see it ; and then, half of it is not worth 
seeing. Girls should be like daisies ; nice and white, 



Home Virtues. 133 

with an edge of red, if you look close ; making 
the ground bright wherever they are ; knowing 
simply and quietly that they do it, and are meant 
to do it, and that it would be very wrong if they 
didn't do it. Not want to be seen, indeed ! How 
long were you in doing your back hair, this after- 
noon, Jessie ? 

(Jessie not immediately answering, Dora comes 
to her assistance) 

DORA. Not above three-quarters of an hour, I 
think, Jess ? 

JESSIE {putting Iter finger up). Now, Dorothy, you 
needn't talk, you know ! 

L. I know she needn't, Jessie ; I shall ask her 
about those dark plaits presently. (DORA looks round 
to see if there is any way open for retreat) But never 
mind ; it was worth the time, whatever it was ; and 
nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a 
chignon : but if you don't want it to be seen, you 
had better wear a cap. 

Jessie. Ah, now, are you really going to do 
nothing but play ? And we all have been thinking 
and thinking, all day ; and hoping you would tell us 
things ; and now — ! 

L. And now I am telling you things, and true 
things, and things good for you ; and you won't 
believe me. You might as well have let me go to 



134 Home Virtues. 

sleep at once, as I wanted to. {Endeavours again to 
make himself comfortable.) 

Isabel. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you 
naughty ! — -Kathleen, come here. 

L. {knowing what he has to expect if Kathleen 
comes). Get away, Isabel, you're too heavy. {Sitting 
up) What have I been saying ? 

Dora. I do believe he has been asleep all the 
time ! You never heard anything like the things 
you've been saying. 

L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and 
anything like them, it is all I want. 

Egypt. Yes, but we don't understand, and you 
know we don't ; and we want to. 

L. What did I say first ? 

DORA. That the first virtue of girls was wanting 
to go to balls. 

L. I said nothing of the kind. 

JESSIE. * Always wanting to dance,' you said. 

L. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue is to 
be intensely happy ; — so happy that they don't know 
what to do with themselves for happiness, — and dance, 
instead of walking. Don't you recollect ' Louisa ' ? 



No fountain from a rocky cave 
E'er tripped with foot so free ; 

She seemed as happy as a wave 
That dances on the sea.' 



Home Virtues. 135 

A girl is always like that, when everything's right 
with her. 

Violet. But, surely, one must be bad sometimes ? 

L. Yes, Violet ; and dull sometimes, and stupid 
sometimes, and cross sometimes. What must be, 
must; but it is always either our own fault, or some- 
body else's. The last and worst thing that can be 
said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls 
sad, and weary. 

May. But I am sure I have heard a great many 
good people speak against dancing ? 

L. Yes, May ; but it does not follow they were 
wise as well as good. I suppose they think Jeremiah 
liked better to have to write Lamentations for his 
people, than to have to write that promise for them, 
which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may 
get on quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping 
for her children ; though the verse they pass is the 
counter blessing to that one : ' Then shall the virgin 
rejoice in the dance ; and both young men and old 
together ; and I will turn their mourning into joy.' 
( The children get very serious ; but look at each 
other, as if pleased) 

Mary. They understand now : but, do you know 
what you said next ? 

L. Yes; I was not more than half asleep. I said 
their second virtue was dressing. 



136 Home Virtues. 

MARY. Well ! what did you mean by that ? 

L. What do you mean by dressing ? 

MARY. Wearing fine clothes. 

L. Ah ! there's the mistake. / mean wearing 
plain ones. 

Mary. Yes, I daresay ! but that's not what girls 
understand by dressing, you know. 

L. I can't help that. If they understand by 
dressing, buying dresses, perhaps they also under- 
stand by drawing, buying pictures. But when I hear 
them say they can draw, I understand that they can 
make a drawing ; and when I hear them say they can 
dress, I understand that they can make a dress ; and 
— which is quite as difficult — wear one. 

DORA. I'm not sure about the making ; for the 
wearing, we can all wear them — out, before anybody 
expects it. 

Egypt [aside to L., piteously). Indeed I have 
mended that torn flounce quite neatly ; look if I 
haven't ! 

L. (aside to Egypt). All right ; don't be afraid. 
(Aloud, to DORA.) Yes, doubtless ; but you know 
that is only a slow way of ^dressing. 

DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, 
are we ? 

L. Yes ; and always to dress yourselves beauti- 
fully — not finely, unless on occasion ; but then very 



Home Virtues. 137 

finely and beautifully too. Also you are to dress as 
many other people as you can ; and to teach them 
how to dress, if they don't know ; and to consider 
every ill-dressed woman or child whom you see 
anywhere, as a personal disgrace ; and to get at 
them, somehow, until everybody is as beautifully 
dressed as birds. 

(Silence ; the children drawing their breaths 
hard as if they had come from under a 
shower bath) 

L. (seeing objections begin to express themselves in 
the eyes). Now you needn't say you can't ; for you 
can : and it's what you were meant to do, always ; and 
to dress your houses, and your gardens, too ; and 
to do very little else, I believe, except singing; and 
dancing, as we said, of course : and — one thing more. 

DORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose ? 

L. Yes ; on Violet's system of triplicities. 

Dora. Well, we are prepared for anything now. 
What is it ? 

L. Cooking. 

Dora. Cardinal, indeed ! If only Beatrice were 
here with her seven handmaids, that she might see 
what a fine eighth we had found for her ! 

Mary. And the interpretation ? What does 
* cooking ' mean ? 

L. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of 




138 Home Virtues. 

Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Re- 
bekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the 
knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and 
spices ; and of all that is healing and sweet in fields 
and groves, and savoury in meats ; it means care- 
fulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and will- 
ingness, and readiness of appliance ; it means the 
economy of your great-grandmothers, and the science 
of modern chemists ; it means much tasting, and no 
wasting ; it means English thoroughness, and French 
art, and Arabian hospitality ; and it means, in fine, 
that you are to be perfectly and always, ' ladies ' — 
1 loaf-givers ; ' and, as you are to see, imperatively, 
that everybody has something pretty to put on, — so 
you are to see, yet more imperatively, that every- 
body has something nice to eat. 

{Another pause > and long-drazvn breatJi). 

DORA {slowly recovering herself) to EGYPT. We 
had better have let him go to sleep, I think, after all ! 

L. You had better let the younger ones go to 
sleep, now : for I haven't half done. 

Isabel {panic-struck). Oh ! please, please ! just 
one quarter of an hour. 

L. No, Isabel ; I cannot say what I've got to say, 
in a quarter of an hour ; and it is too hard for you, 
besides : — you would be lying awake, and trying to 
make it out, half the night. That will never do. 



Home Virtues. 139 

Isabel. Oh, please ! 

L. It would please me exceedingly, mousie : but 
there are times when we must both be displeased ; 
more's the pity. Lily may stay for half an hour, if 
she likes. 

Lily. I can't ; because Isey never goes to sleep 
if she is waiting for me to come. 

Isabel. Oh, yes, Lily ; I'll go to sleep to-night ; 
I will, indeed. 

Lily. Yes, it's very likely, Isey, with those fine 
round eyes! (To L.) You'll tell me something of 
what you've been saying, to-morrow, won't you ? 

L. No, I won't, Lily. You must choose. It's only 

in Miss Edgeworth's novels that one can do right, 

and have one's cake and sugar afterwards as well ; 

(not that I consider the dilemma, to-night, so grave). 

(Lily, sighing, takes Isabel's hand) 

Yes, Lily dear, it will be better, in the outcome 
of it, so, than if you were to hear all the talks that 
ever were talked, and all the stories that ever were 
told. Good-night. 

(The door leading to tJie condemned cells of the 
Dormitory closes on Lily, Isabel, Florrie, 
and other diminutive and submissive victims) 

JESSIE {after a pause). Why, I thought you were 
so fond of Miss Edge worth ! 

L. So I am ; and so you ought all to be. I can 



140 Home Virtues. 

read her over and over again, without ever tiring : 
there's no one whose every page is so full, and so 
delightful ; no one who brings you into the company 
of pleasanter or wiser people ; no one who tells you 
more truly how to do right. And it is very nice, in 
the midst of a wild world, to have the very ideal of 
poetical justice done always to one's hand : — to have 
everybody found out, who tells lies ; and everybody 
decorated with a red riband, who doesn't ; and to see 
the good Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, 
receiving a grand ovation from an entire dinner party 
disturbed for the purpose ; and poor, dear little Rosa- 
mond, who chooses purple jars instead of new shoes, 
left at last without either her shoes or her bottle. 
But it isn't life ; and, in the way children might 
easily understand it, it isn't morals. 

Jessie. How do you mean we might under- 
stand it ? 

L. You might think Miss Edgeworth meant that 
the right was to be done mainly because one was 
always rewarded for doing it. It is an injustice to 
her to say that : her heroines always do right 
simply for its own sake, as they should ; and her 
examples of conduct and motive are wholly admir- 
able. But her representation of events is false and 
misleading. Her good characters never are brought 
into the deadly trial of goodness, — the doing right, 



Home Virtues. 141 

and suffering for it, quite finally. And that is life, 
as God arranges it. ' Taking up one's cross ' does 
not at all mean having ovations at dinner parties, 
and being put over everybody else's head. 

DORA. But what does it mean then ? That is 
just what we couldn't understand, when you were 
telling us about not sacrificing ourselves yesterday. 

L. My dear, it means simply that you are to go 
the road which you see to be the straight one : carry- 
ing whatever you find is given you to carry, as well 
and stoutly as you can ; without making faces or 
calling people to come and look at you. Above all, 
you are neither to load, nor unload, yourself; nor 
cut your cross to your own liking. Some people 
think it would be better for them to have it large ; 
and many, that they could carry it much faster if 
it were small ; and even those who like it largest 
are usually very particular about its being ornamental, 
and made of the best ebony. But all that you have 
really to do is to keep your back as straight as you 
can ; and not think about what is upon it — above 
all, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and 
essential meaning of ' virtue ' is in that straightness 
of back. Yes ; you may laugh, children, but it is. 
You know I was to tell you about the words that 
began with V. Sibyl, what does ' virtue ' mean, 
literally ? 



142 Home Virtues. 

Sibyl. Does it mean courage ? 

L. Yes ; but a particular kind of courage. It 
means courage of the nerve ; vital courage. That 
first syllable of it, if you look in Max Miiller, you 
will find really means ' nerve,' and from it comes 'vis/ 
and ' vir/ and ' virgin ' (through vireo), and the con- 
nected word ' virga ' — a ' rod ; ' — the green rod, or 
springing bough of a tree, being the type of perfect 
human strength, both in the use of it in the Mosaic 
story, when it becomes a serpent, or strikes the rock ; 
or when Aaron's bears its almonds ; and in the 
metaphorical expressions, the ' Rod out of the stem 
of Jesse,' and the ' Man whose name is the Branch/ 
and so on. And the essential idea of real virtue is 
that of a vital human strength, which instinctively, 
constantly, and without motive, does what is right. 
You must train men to this by habit, as you would 
the branch of a tree ; and give them instincts and 
manners (or morals) of purity, justice, kindness, and 
courage. Once rightly trained, they act as they 
should, irrespectively of all motive, of fear, or of 
reward. It is the blackest sign of putrescence in 
a national religion, when men speak as if it were 
the only safeguard of conduct ; and assume that, 
but for the fear of being burned, or for the hope 
of being rewarded, everybody would pass their lives 
in lying, stealing, and murdering. I think quite one 



Home Virtues. 143 

of the notablest historical events of this century 
(perhaps the very notablest), was that council of 
clergymen, horror-struck at the idea of any diminu- 
tion in our dread of hell, at which the last of Eng- 
lish clergymen whom one would have expected to 
see in such a function, rose as the devil's advocate ; 
to tell us how impossible it was we could get on 
without him. 

Violet (after a pause). But, surely, if people 
weren't afraid — {hesitates again). 

L. They should be afraid of doing wrong, and of 
that only, my dear. Otherwise, if they only don't 
do wrong for fear of being punished, they have done 
wrong in their hearts, already. 

Violet. Well, but surely, at least one ought to 
be afraid of displeasing God ; and one's desire to 
please Him should be one's first motive ? 

L. He never would be pleased with us, if it were, 
my dear. When a father sends his son out into the 
world — suppose as an apprentice — fancy the boy's 
coming home at night, and saying, ' Father, I could 
have robbed the till to-day ; but I didn't, because 
I thought you wouldn't like it' Do you think the 
father would be particularly pleased ? 
(Violet is silent) 

He would answer, would he not, if he were wise 
and good, ' My boy, though you had no father, you 



1 44 ' Home X Virtues) 



must not rob tills ' ? And nothing is ever done so 
as really to please our Great Father, unless we would 
also have done it, though we had had no Father to 
know of it 

Violet {after long pause). But, then, what con- 
tinual threatenings, and promises of reward there are ! 

L. And how vain both ! with the Jews, and with 
all of us. But the fact is, that the threat and pro- 
mise are simply statements of the Divine law, and 
of its consequences. The fact is truly told you, — 
make what use you may of it : and as collateral 
warning, or encouragement, or comfort, the knowledge 
of future consequences may often be helpful to us ; 
but helpful chiefly to the better state when we can 
act without reference to them. And there's no 
measuring the poisoned influence^ of that notion of / 
future reward on the mind of Ghristian Europe, in 
the early ages. Half the monastic system rose bT*L^ 
of that, acting -on the occult pride and ambition of 
good people (as the other half of it came of their 
follies and misfortunes). There is always a con- 
siderable quantity of pride, to begin with, in what 
is called * giving one's self ' to God. As if one had 
ever belonged to anybody else ! 

DORA. But, surely, great good has come out of 
-j- the monastic system — our books,— our sciences — all 
saved by the monks ? 



Home Virtues, 145 

L. Saved from what, my dear ? From the abyss 
of misery and ruin which that false Christianity 
allowed the whole active world to live in. When it 
had become the principal amusement, and the most 
admired art, of Christian men, to cut one another's 
throats, and burn one another's towns ; of course the 
few feeble or reasonable persons left, who desired 
quiet, safety, and kind fellowship, got into cloisters : 
and the gentlest, thoughtfullest, noblest men and 
women shut themselves up, precisely where they 
could be of least use. They are very fine things, 
for us painters, now — the towers and white arches 
upon the tops of the rocks ; always in places where 
it takes a day's climbing to get at them : but the 
intense tragi-comedy of the thing, when one thinks 
of it, is unspeakable. All the good people of the 
world getting themselves hung up out of the way of 
mischief, like Bailie Nicol Jarvie ; — poor little lambs, 
as it were, dangling there for the sign of the Golden 
Fleece ; or like Socrates in his basket in the ' Clouds ' ! 
(I must read you that bit of Aristophanes again, by 
the way). And believe me, children, I am no warped 
witness, as far as regards monasteries ; or if I am, it 
is in their favour. I have always had a strong 
leaning that way ; and have pensively shivered with 
Augustines at St. Bernard ; and happily made hay 
with Franciscans at Fesole, and sat silent with 

10 



146 Home Virtues. 

Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence ; 
and mourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose 
and Bolton. But the wonder is always to me, not how 
much, but how little, the monks have, on the whole, 
done, with all that leisure, and all that good-will ! 
What nonsense monks characteristically wrote ; — 
what little progress they made in the sciences to 
which they devoted themselves as a duty, — medicine 
especially ; — and, last and worst, what depths of 
degradation they can sometimes see one another, and 
the population round them, sink into ; without either 
doubting their system, or reforming it ! 

{Seeing questions rising to lips.) Hold your little 
tongues, children ; it's very late, and you'll make 
me forget what I've to say. Fancy yourselves in 
pews, for five minutes. There's one point of possible 
good in the conventual system, which is always 
attractive to young girls ; and the idea is a very 
dangerous one ; — the notion of a merit, or exalting 
virtue, consisting in a habit of meditation on the 
' things above,' or things of the next world. Now it 
is quite true, that a person of beautiful mind, dwell- 
ing on whatever appears to them most desirable and 
lovely in a possible future, will not only pass their 
time pleasantly, but will even acquire, at last, a 
vague and wildly gentle charm of manner and fea- 
ture, which will give them an air ot peculiar sanctity 



Home Virtues. 147 

in the eyes of others. Whatever real or apparent 
good there may be in this result, I want you to ob- 
serve, children, that we have no real authority for 
the reveries to which it is owing. We are told 
nothing distinctly of the heavenly world ; except that 
it will be free from sorrow, and pure from sin. 
What is said of pearl gates, golden floors, and the 
like, is accepted as merely figurative by religious 
enthusiasts themselves : and whatever they pass their 
time in conceiving, whether of the happiness of risen 
souls, of their intercourse, or of the appearance and 
employment of the heavenly powers, is entirely the 
product of their own imagination ; and as completely 
and distinctly a work of fiction, or romantic inven- 
tion, as any novel of Sir Walter Scott's. That the 
romance is founded on religious theory or doctrine ; 
— that no disagreeable or wicked persons are ad- 
mitted into the story ; — and that the inventor 
fervently hopes that some portion of it may here- 
after come true, does not in the least alter the real 
nature of the effort or enjoyment. 

Now, whatever indulgence may be granted to ami- 
able people for pleasing themselves in this innocent 
way, it is beyond question, that to seclude themselves 
from the rough duties of life, merely to write religious 
romances, or, as in most cases, merely to dream 
them without taking so much trouble as is implied 



148 Home Virtues. 

in writing, ought not to be received as an act of 
heroic virtue. But, observe, even in admitting thus 
much, I have assumed that the fancies are just and 
beautiful though fictitious. Now, what right have 
any of us to assume that our own fancies will 
assuredly be either the one or the other ? That 
they delight us, and appear lovely to us, is no real 
proof of its not being wasted time to form them : 
and we may surely be led somewhat to distrust our 
judgment of them by observing what ignoble ima- 
ginations have sometimes sufficiently, or even 
enthusiastically, occupied the hearts of others. The 
principal source of the spirit of religious contempla- 
tion is the East ; now I have here in my hand a 
Byzantine image of Christ, which, if you will look at 
it seriously, may, I think, at once and for ever render 
you cautious in the indulgence of a merely con- 
templative habit of mind. Observe, it is the fashion 
to look at such a thing only as a piece of barbarous 
art ; that is the smallest part of its interest. What 
I want you to see, is the baseness and falseness of a 
religious state of enthusiasm, in which such a work 
could be dwelt upon with pious pleasure. That a 
figure, with two small round black beads for eyes ; a 
gilded face, deep cut into horrible wrinkles ; an open 
gash for a mouth, and a distorted skeleton for a 
body, wrapped about, to make it fine, with striped 



Home Virtues. 1 49 

enamel of blue and gold : — that such a figure, I say, 
should ever have been thought helpful towards the 
conception of a Redeeming Deity, may make you, I 
think, very doubtful, even of the Divine approval, — 
much more of the Divine inspiration, — of religious 
reverie in general. You feel, doubtless, that your 
own idea of Christ would be something very different 
from this ; but in what does the difference consist ? 
Not in any more Divine authority in your imagina- 
tion ; but in the intellectual work of six intervening 
centuries ; which, simply, by artistic discipline, has 
refined this crude conception for you, and filled you 
partly with an innate sensation, partly with an ac- 
quired knowledge, of higher forms, — which render 
this Byzantine crucifix as horrible to you, as it was 
pleasing to its maker. More is required to excite 
your fancy ; but your fancy is of no more authority 
than his was : and a point of national art-skill is 
quite conceivable, in which the best we can do 
now will be as offensive to the religious dreamers of 
the more highly cultivated time, as this Byzantine 
crucifix is to you. 

Mary. But surely, Angelico will always retain 
his power over everybody ? 

L. Yes, I should think, always ; as the gentle 
words of a child will : but you would be much sur- 
prised, Mary, if you thoroughly took the pains to 



1 50 Home Virtues. 

analyse, and had the perfect means of analysing, 
that power of Angelico, — to discover its real sources. 
Of course it is natural, at first, to attribute it to the 
pure religious fervour by which he was inspired ; 
but do you suppose Angelico was really the only 
monk, in all the Christian world of the middle ages, 
who laboured, in art, with a sincere religious en- 
thusiasm ? 

Mary. No, certainly not. 

L. Anything more frightful, more destructive of 
all religious faith whatever, than such a supposition, 
could not be. And yet, what other monk ever 
produced such work ? I have myself examined care- 
fully upwards of two thousand illuminated missals, 
with especial view to the discovery of any evidence 
of a similar result upon the art, from the monkish 
devotion ; and utterly in vain. 

Mary. But then, was not Fra Angelico a man 
of entirely separate and exalted genius ? 

L. Unquestionably ; and granting him to be that, 
the peculiar phenomenon in his art is, to me, not its 
loveliness, but its weakness. The effect of ' inspira- 
tion,' had it been real, on a man of consummate 
genius, should have been, one would have thought, to 
make everything that he did faultless and strong, no 
less than lovely. But of all men, deserving to be 
called c great,' Fra Angelico permits to himself the 



Home Virtues. 151 

least pardonable faults, and the most palpable follies. 
There is evidently within him a sense of grace, 
and power of invention, as great as Ghiberti's : — we 
are in the habit of attributing those high qualities 
to his religious enthusiasm ; but, if they were pro- 
duced by that enthusiasm in him, they ought to 
be produced by the same feelings in others ; and 
we see they are not. Whereas, comparing him 
with contemporary great artists, of equal grace and 
invention, one peculiar character remains notable 
in him — which, logically, we ought therefore to 
attribute to the religious fervour ; — and that dis- 
tinctive character is, the contented indulgence of 
his own weaknesses, and perseverance in his own 
ignorances. 

Mary. But that's dreadful ! And what is the 
source of the peculiar charm which we all feel in 
his work ? 

L. There are many sources of it, Mary ; united 
and seeming like one. You would never feel that 
charm but in the work of an entirely good man ; be 
sure of that : but the goodness is only the recipient 
and modifying element, not the creative one. Con- 
sider carefully what delights you in any original 
picture of Angelico's. You will find, for one minor 
thing, an exquisite variety and brightness of orna- 
mental work. That is not Angelico's inspiration. 



152 Home Virtues. 

It is the final result of the labour and thought of 
millions of artists, of all nations ; from the earliest 
Egyptian potters downwards — Greeks, Byzantines, 
Hindoos, Arabs, Gauls, and Northmen— all joining 
in the toil ; and consummating it in Florence, in 
that century, with such embroidery of robe and in- 
laying of armour as had never been seen till then ; 
nor, probably, ever will be seen more. Angelico 
merely takes his share of this inheritance, and applies 
it in the tenderest way to subjects which are pecu- 
liarly acceptant of it. But the inspiration, if it exist 
anywhere, flashes on the knight's shield quite as 
radiantly as on the monk's picture. Examining 
farther into the sources of your emotion in the 
Angelico work, you will find much of the impression 
of sanctity dependent on a singular repose and grace 
of gesture, consummating itself in the floating, flying, 
and above all, in the dancing groups. That is not 
Angelico's inspiration. It is only a peculiarly tender 
use of systems of grouping which had been long 
before developed by Giotto, Memmi, and Orcagna ; 
and the real root of it all is simply — What do 
you think, children ? The beautiful dancing of the 
Florentine maidens ! 

DORA {indignant again). Now, I wonder what 
next ! Why not say it all depended on Herodias' 
daughter, at once ? 



Home Virtues. 153 

L. Yes ; it is certainly a great argument against 
singing, that there were once sirens. 

Dora. Well, it may be all very fine and philo- 
sophical ; but shouldn't I just like to read you the 
end of the second volume of ' Modern Painters ' ! 

L. My dear, do you think any teacher could be 
worthy our listening to, or anybody else's listening 
to, who had learned nothing, and altered his mind in 
nothing, from seven and twenty to seven and forty ? 
But that second volume is very good for you as far 
as it goes. It is a great advance and a thoroughly 
straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main 
business of that second volume to lead you, from 
Dutch cattle-pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra An- 
gelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow 
older, to be strengthened in the general sense and 
judgment which may enable you to distinguish the 
weaknesses from the virtues of what you love : else 
you might, come to love both alike ; or even the 
weaknesses without the virtues. You might end by 
liking Overbeck and Cornelius as well as Angelico. 
However, I have perhaps been leaning a little too 
much to the merely practical side of things, in 
to-night's talk ; and you are always to remember, 
children, that I do not deny, though I cannot affirm, 
the spiritual advantages resulting, in certain cases, 
from enthusiastic religious reverie, and from the 



1 54 Home Virtues. 

other practices of saints and anchorites. The evi- 
dence respecting them has never yet been honestly 
collected, much less dispassionately examined : but 
assuredly, there is in that direction a probability, and 
more than a probability, of dangerous error, while 
there is none whatever in the practice of an active, 
cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of attaining 
a higher religious position, which induces us to 
encounter, for its exalted alternative, the risk of 
unhealthy error, is often, as I said, founded more on 
pride than piety ; and those who, in modest useful- 
ness, have accepted what seemed to them here the 
lowliest place in the kingdom of their Father, are 
not, I believe, the least likely to receive hereafter 
the command, then unmistakable, ' Friend, go up 
higher.'^ 



LECTURE VIII. 

CRYSTAL CAPRICE. 



LECTURE VIII. 

CRYSTAL CAPRICE. 

Formal Lecture in Schoolroom, after some pi'aciical examination 
of mi?ierals. 

L. We have seen enough, children, though very 
little of what might be seen if we had more time, 
of mineral structures produced by visible opposition, 
or contest among elements ; structures of which the 
variety, however great, need not surprise us : for .we 
quarrel, ourselves, for many and slight causes ; — much 
more, one should think, may crystals, who can only 
feel the antagonism, not argue about it. But there is 
a yet more singular mimicry of our human ways in the 
varieties of form which appear owing to no antago- 
nistic force ; but merely to the variable humour and 
caprice of the crystals themselves : and I have asked 
you all to come into the schoolroom to-day, because, 
of course, this is a part of the crystal mind which 
must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine audience. 
{Great symptoms of disapproval on the part of said 
audience*) Now, you need not pretend that it will 



158 Crystal Caprice. 

not interest you ; why should it not ? It is true that 
we men are never capricious ; but that only makes 
us the more dull and disagreeable. You, who are 
crystalline in brightness, as well as in caprice, charm 
infinitely, by infinitude of change. {Audible murmurs 
of l Worse and worse /' ' As if we could be got over 
that way ! ' &c. The LECTURER, however, observing 
the expression of the features to be more complacent, 
proceeds) And the most curious mimicry, if not 
of your changes of fashion, at least of your various 
modes (in healthy periods) of national costume, 
takes place among the crystals of different coun- 
tries. With a little experience, it is quite pos- 
sible to say at a glance, in what districts certain 
crystals have been found ; and although, if we had 
knowledge extended and accurate enough, we might 
of course ascertain the laws and circumstances which 
have necessarily produced the form peculiar to each 
locality, this would be just as true of the fancies of 
the human mind. If we could know the exact cir- 
cumstances which affect it, if we could foretell what 
now seems to us only caprice of thought, as well as 
what now seems to us only caprice of crystal : nay, 
so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on the whole 
easier to -find some reason why the peasant girls of 
Berne should wear their caps in the shape of butter- 
flies ; and the peasant girls of Munich theirs in the 



Crystal Caprice. 159 

shape of shells, than to say why the rock-crystals of 
Dauphine should have all their summits of the shape 
of lip pieces of flageolets, while those of St. Gothard 
are symmetrical ; or why the fluor of Chamouni is 
rose-coloured, and in octahedrons, while the fluor of 
Weardale is green, and in cubes. Still farther re- 
moved is the hope, at present, of accounting for minor 
differences in modes of grouping and construction. 
Take, for instance, the caprices of this single mineral, 
quartz ; — variations upon a single theme. It has 
many forms ; but see what it will make out of this 
one, the six-sided prism. For shortness' sake, I shall 
call the body of the prism its ' column,' and the 
pyramid at the extremities its ' cap.' Now, here, 
first you have a straight column, as long and thin as 
a stalk of asparagus, with two little caps at the ends ; 
and here you have a short thick column, as solid as 
a hay-stack, with two fat caps at the ends ; and here 
you have two caps fastened together, and no column 
at all between them ! Then here is a crystal with 
its column fat in the middle, and tapering to a little 
cap ; and here is one stalked like a mushroom, with 
a huge cap put on the top of a slender column ! 
Then here is a column built wholly out of little 
caps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here 
is a column built of columns and caps ; the caps all 
truncated about half way to their points. And in 



160 Crystal Caprice. 

both these last, the little crystals are set anyhow, 
and build the large one in a disorderly way ; but 
here is a crystal made of columns and truncated 
caps set in regular terraces all the way up. 

Mary. But are not these, groups of crystals, 
rather than one crystal ? 

.L. What do you mean by a group, and what by 
one crystal ? 

DORA {audibly aside, to MARY, who is brought to 
pause). ■ You know you are never expected to answer, 
Mary. 

L. I'm sure this is easy enough. What do you 
mean by a group of people ? 

Mary. Three or four together, or a good many 
together, like the caps in these crystals. 

L. But when a great many persons get together 
they don't take the shape of one person ? 

(MARY still at pause) 

Isabel. No, because they can't ; but, you know, 
the crystals can ; so why shouldn't they ? 

L. Well, they don't ; that is to say, they don't 
always, nor even often. Look here, Isabel. 

ISABEL. * What a nasty ugly thing ! 

L. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is 
made of beautiful crystals ; they are a little grey 
and cold in colour, but most of them are clear. 

ISABEL. But they are in such horrid, horrid disorder! 



Crystal Caprice. 161 

L. Yes ; all disorder is horrid, when it is among 
things that are naturally orderly. Some little girls' 
rooms are naturally ^orderly, I suppose ; or I don't 
know how they could live in them, if they cry out so 
when they only see quartz crystals in confusion. 

Isabel. Oh ! but how come they to be like that ? 

L. You may well ask. And yet you will always 
hear people talking as if they thought order more 
wonderful than disorder ! It is wonderful — as we 
have seen ; but to me, as to you, child, the supremely 
wonderful thing is that nature should ever be ruinous, 
or wasteful, or dreadful ! I look at this wild piece 
of crystallisation with endless astonishment. 

MARY. Where does it come from ? 

L. The Tete Noire of Chamonix. What makes 
it more strange is, that it should be in a vein of fine 
quartz rock. If it were in a mouldering rock, it 
would be natural enough ; but in the midst of so 
fine substance, here are the crystals tossed in a heap ; 
some large, myriads small, (almost as small as dust,) 
tumbling over each other like a terrified crowd, and 
glued together by the sides, and edges, and backs, 
and heads ; some warped, and some pushed out and 
in, and all spoiled, and each spoiling the rest. 

Mary. And how flat they all are ! 

L. Yes ; that's the fashion at the Tete Noire. 

Mary. But surely this is ruin, not caprice ? 

1 1 



1 62 Crystal Caprice, 

L. I believe it is in great part misfortune ; and 
we will examine these crystal troubles in next lec- 
ture. But if you want to see the gracefullest and 
happiest caprices of which dust is capable, you 
must go to the Hartz ; not that I ever mean to 
go there myself, for I want to retain the romantic 
feeling about the name ; and I have done myself 
some harm already by seeing the monotonous 
and heavy form of the Brocken from the suburbs 
of Brunswick. But whether the mountains be pic- 
turesque or not, the tricks which the goblins (as I 
am told,) teach the crystals in them, are incom- 
parably pretty. They work chiefly on the mind of 
a docile, bluish-coloured carbonate of lime ; which 
comes out of a grey limestone. The goblins take 
the greatest possible care of its education, and see 
that nothing happens to it to hurt its temper : and 
when it may be supposed to have arrived at the 
crisis which is, to a well brought up mineral, what 
presentation at court is to a young lady — after 
which it is expected to set fashions — there's no end 
to its pretty ways of behaving. First it will make 
itself into pointed darts as fine as hoar-frost ; here 
it is changed into a white fur as fine as silk ; here 
into little crowns and circlets, as bright as silver, as 
if for the gnome princesses to wear ; here it is in 
beautiful little plates, for them to eat off ; presently 



Crystal Caprice. 163 

it is in towers, which they might be imprisoned in ; 
presently in caves and cells, where they may make 
nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever hear 
of them more ; here is some of it in sheaves, like 
corn ; here, some in drifts, like snow ; here, some in 
rays, like stars : and, though these are, all of them, 
necessarily, shapes that the mineral takes in other 
places, they are all taken here with such a grace that 
you recognize the high caste and breeding of the 
crystals wherever you meet them ; and know at once 
they are Hartz-born. 

Of course, such fine things as these are only done 
by crystals which are perfectly good, and good- 
humoured ; and of course, also, there are ill-humoured 
crystals who torment each other, and annoy quieter 
crystals, yet without coming to anything like serious 
war. Here (for once) is some ill-disposed quartz, tor- 
menting a peaceable octahedron of fluor, in mere 
caprice. I looked at it the other night so long, 
and so wonderingly, just before putting my candle 
out, that I fell into another strange dream. But 
you don't care about dreams. 

Dora. No; we didn't, yesterday; but you know 
we are made up of caprice ; so we do, to day : and 
you must tell it us directly. 

L. Well, you see, Neith and her work were still 
much in my mind : and then, I had been looking over 



164 Crystal Caprice. 

these Hartz things for you, and thinking of the 
sort of grotesque sympathy there seemed to be in 
them with the beautiful fringe and pinnacle work 
of Northern architecture. So, when I fell asleep, I 
thought I saw Neith and St. Barbara talking together. 

DORA. But what had St. Barbara to do with 
it ? * 

L. My dear, I am quite sure St. Barbara is the 
patroness of good architects : not St. Thomas, what- 
ever the old builders thought. It might be very fine, 
according to the monks' notions, in St. Thomas, to 
give all his employer's money away to the poor : but 
breaches of contract are bad foundations ; and I be- 
lieve, it was not he, but St. Barbara, who overlooked 
the work in all the buildings you and I care about. 
However that may be, it was certainly she whom I 
saw in my dream with Neith. Neith was sitting 
weaving, and I thought she looked sad, and threw her 
shuttle slowly ; and St. Barbara was standing at her 
side, in a stiff little gown, all ins and outs, and angles ; 
but so bright with embroidery that it dazzled me 
whenever she moved ; the train of it was just like 
a heap of broken jewels, it was so stiff, and full of 
corners, and so many-coloured, and bright. Her 
hair fell over her shoulders in long, delicate waves, 
from under a little three-pinnacled crown, like a 

* Note v. 



Crystal Caprice. 165 

tower. She was asking Neith about the laws of 
architecture in Egypt and Greece ; and when Neith 
told her the measures of the pyramids, St. Barbara 
said she thought they would have been better three- 
cornered : and when Neith told her the measures of 
the Parthenon, St. Barbara said she thought it ought 
to have had two transepts. But she was pleased 
when Neith told her of the temple of the dew, and of 
the Caryan maidens bearing its frieze : and then she 
thought that perhaps Neith would like to hear what 
sort of temples she was building herself, in the 
French valleys, and on the crags of the Rhine. So 
she began gossiping, just as one of you might to an 
old lady: and certainly she talked in the sweetest way 
in the world to Neith ; and explained to her all about 
crockets and pinnacles : and Neith sat, looking very 
grave ; and always graver as St. Barbara went on ; 
till at last, I'm sorry to say, St. Barbara lost her 
temper a little. 

May {very grave liersclf). ' St. Barbara ? ' 

L. Yes, May. Why shouldn't she ? It was very 
tiresome of Neith to sit looking like that. 

May. But, then, St. Barbara was a saint ! 

L. What's that, May ? 

May. A saint ! A saint is — I'm sure you know ! 

L. If I did, it would not make me sure that you 
knew too, May : but I don't. 



1 66 Crystal Caprice. 

VIOLET {expressing the incredulity of the audience}. 
Oh, — sir ? 

L. That is to say, I know that people are called 
saints who are supposed to be better than others : 
but I don't know how much better they must be, in 
order to be saints ; nor how nearly anybody may be 
a saint, and yet not be quite one ; nor whether every- 
body who is called a saint was one ; nor whether 
everybody who isn't called a saint, isn't one. 

{General silence ; the audience feeling themselves 
on the verge of the Infinities — and a little 
shocked — and much puzzled by so many ques- 
tions at once.) 

L. Besides, did you never hear that verse about 
being ' called to be saints ' ? 

May {repeats Rom. i. 7). 

L. Quite right, May. Well, then, who are called 
to be that ? People in Rome only ? 

May. Everybody, I suppose, whom God loves. 

L. What ! little girls as well as other people ? 

May. All grown-up people, I mean. 

L. Why not little girls? Are they wickeder 
when they are little ? 

May. Oh, I hope not. 

L. Why not little girls, then ? 
{Pause.) 

Lily. Because, you know, we can't be worth 



Crystal Caprice. 167 

anything if we're ever so good ; — I mean if we try 
to be ever so good ; and we can't do difficult things 
— like saints. 

L. I am afraid, my dear, that old people are not 
more able or willing for their difficulties than you 
children are for yours. All I can say is, that if ever 
I see any of you, when you are seven or eight and 
twenty, knitting your brows over any work you want 
to do or to understand, as I saw you, Lily, knitting 
your brows over your slate this morning, I should 
think you very noble women. But — to come back to 
my dream — St. Barbara did lose her temper a little ; 
and I was not surprised. For you can't think how 
provoking Neith looked, sitting there just like a statue 
of sandstone ; only going on weaving, like a machine, 
and never quickening the cast of her shuttle ; while 
St. Barbara was telling her so eagerly all about the 
most beautiful things, and chattering away, as fast as 
bells ring on Christmas Eve, till she saw that Neith 
didn't care ; and then St. Barbara got as red as a 
rose, and stopped, just in time ; — or I think she 
would really have said something naughty. 

Isabel. Oh, please, but didn't Neith say anything 
then ? 

L. Yes. She said quite quietly, ' It may be very 
pretty, my love ; but it is all nonsense.' 

Isabel. Oh dear, oh dear ! and then ? 



1 68 Crystal Caprice. 

L. Well ; then I was a little angry myself, and 
hoped St. Barbara would be quite angry ; but she 
wasn't. She bit her lips first ; and then gave a great 
sigh — such a wild, sweet sigh — and then she knelt 
down and hid her face on Neith's knees. Then 
Neith smiled a little, and was moved. 

Isabel. Oh, I am so glad ! 

L. And she touched St. Barbara's forehead with 
a flower of white lotus ; and St. Barbara sobbed once 
or twice, and then said : ' If you could only see how 
1 beautiful it is, and how much it makes people feel 
1 what is good and lovely ; and if you could only hear 
1 the children singing in the Lady chapels ! ' And Neith 
smiled, — but still sadly, — and said, ' How do you know 
4 what I have seen or heard, my love ? Do you think 
' all those vaults and towers of yours have been built 
'without me ? There was not a pillar in your Giotto's 
1 Santa Maria del Fiore which I did not set true by 
'my spearshaft as it rose. But this pinnacle and 
1 flame work which has set your little heart on fire is 
' all vanity ; and you will see what it will come to, and 
1 that soon ; and none will grieve for it more than 
1 1. And then every one will disbelieve your pretty 
' symbols and types. Men must be spoken simply to, 
1 my dear, if you would guide them kindly, and long.' 
But St. Barbara answered, that, ' Indeed she thought 
every one liked her work/ and that ' the people of 



Crystal Caprice. 169 

different towns were as eager about their cathedral 
towers as about their privileges or their markets ; ' 
and then she asked Neith to come and build some- 
thing with her, wall against tower ; and ' see whether 
the people will be as much pleased with your build- 
ing as with mine.' But Neith answered, *' I will not 
* contend with you, my dear. I strive not with those 
' who love me ; and for those who hate me, it is not 
'well to strive with me, as weaver Arachne knows. 
1 And remember, child, that nothing is ever done 
' beautifully, which is done in rivalship ; nor nobly, 
'which is done in pride.' 

Then St. Barbara hung her head quite down, and said 
she was very sorry she had been so foolish ; and kissed 
Neith ; and stood thinking a minute: and then her eyes 
got bright again, and she said, she would go directly 
and build a chapel with five windows in it ; four for 
the four cardinal virtues, and one for humility, in the 
middle, bigger than the rest. And Neith very nearly 
laughed quite out, I thought ; certainly her beautiful 
lips lost all their sternness for an instant ; then she 
said, ' Well, love, build it, but do not put so many 
colours into your windows as you usually do ; else no 
one will be able to see to read, inside : and when it is 
built, let a poor village priest consecrate it, and not an 
archbishop.' St. Barbara started a little, I thought, 
and turned as if to say something ; but changed her 



170 Crystal Caprice. 

mind, and gathered up her train and went out. And 
Neith bent herself again to her loom, in which she was 
weaving a web of strange dark colours, I thought ; 
but perhaps it was only after the glittering of St. 
Barbara's embroidered train : and I tried to make out 
the figures in Neith's web, and confused myself among 
them, as one always does in dreams ; and then the 
dream changed altogether, and I found myself, all at 
once, among a crowd of little Gothic and Eygptian 
spirits, who were quarrelling : at least the Gothic ones 
were trying to quarrel ; for the Egyptian ones only 
sat with their hands on their knees, and their aprons 
sticking out very stiffly ; and stared. And after a 
while I began to understand what the matter was. It 
seemed that some of the troublesome building imps, 
who meddle and make continually, even in the best 
Gothic work, had been listening to St. Barbara's talk 
with Neith ; and had made up their minds that Neith 
had no workpeople who could build against them. 
They were but dull imps, as you may fancy, by their 
thinking that ; and never had done much, except 
disturbing the great Gothic building angels at their 
work, and playing tricks to each other ; indeed, of late 
they had been living years and years, like bats, up 
under the cornices of Strasbourg and Cologne cathe- 
drals, with nothing to do but to make mouths at the 
people below. However, they thought they knew 



Crystal Caprice. 1 7 1 

everything about tower building ; and those who had 
heard what Neith said, told the rest ; and they all flew 
down directly, chattering in German, like jackdaws, to 
show Neith's people what they could do. And they 
had found some of Neith's old workpeople somewhere 
near Sais, sitting in the sun, with their hands on their 
knees ; and abused them heartily : and Neith's people 
did not mind, at first, but, after a while, they seemed 
to get tired of the noise ; and one or two rose up 
slowly, and laid hold of their measuring rods, and said, 
' If St. Barbara's people liked to build with them, 
tower against pyramid, they would show them how to 
lay stones.' Then the Gothic little spirits threw a great 
many double somersaults for joy ; and put the tips of 
their tongues out slily to each other, on one side ; and 
I heard the Egyptians say, ' they must be some new 
kind of frog — they didn't think there was much 
building in them* However, the stiff old workers 
took their rods, as I said, and measured out a square 
space of sand ; but as soon as the German spirits saw 
that, they declared they wanted exactly that bit of 
ground to build on, themselves. Then the Egyptian 
builders offered to go farther off, and the German 
ones said, ' J a wohl.' But as soon as the Egyptians 
had measured out another square, the little Germans 
said they must have some of that too. Then Neith's 
people laughed ; and said, ' they might take as much 



172 Crystal Caprice. 

as they liked, but they would not move the plan of their 
pyramid again.' Then the little Germans took three 
pieces, and began to build three spires directly ; one 
large, and two little. And when the Egyptians saw 
they had fairly begun, they laid their foundation all 
round, of large square stones : and began to build, so 
steadily that they had like to have swallowed up the 
three little German spires. So when the Gothic 
spirits saw that, they built their spires leaning, like 
the tower of Pisa, that they might stick out at the 
side of the pyramid. And Neith's people stared at 
them ; and thought it very clever, but very wrong : 
and on they went, in their own way, and said nothing. 
Then the little Gothic spirits were terribly provoked 
because they could not spoil the shape of the pyra- 
mid ; and they sat down all along the ledges of it to 
make faces ; but that did no good. Then they ran to 
the corners, and put their elbows on their knees, and 
stuck themselves out as far as they could, and made 
more faces ; but that did no good, neither. Then 
they looked up to the sky, and opened their mouths 
wide, and gobbled, and said it was too hot for work, 
and wondered when it would rain ; but that did no 
good, neither. And all the while the Egyptian spirits 
were laying step above step, patiently. But when 
the Gothic ones looked, and saw how high they had 
got, they said, ' Ach, Himmel ! ' and flew down in a 



Crystal Caprice. 173 

great black cluster to the bottom ; and swept out a 
level spot in the sand with their wings, in no time, 
and began building a tower straight up, as fast as 
they could. And the Egyptians stood still again to 
stare at them ; for the Gothic spirits had got quite into 
a passion, and were really working very wonderfully. 
They cut the sandstone into strips as fine as reeds ; 
and put one reed on the top of another, so that you 
could not see where they fitted : and they twisted 
them in and out like basket work, and knotted them 
into likenesses of ugly faces, and of strange beasts 
biting each other ; and up they went, and up still, 
and they made spiral staircases at the corners, for 
the loaded workers to come up by (for I saw they 
were but weak imps, and could not fiy with stones 
on their backs), and then they made traceried 
galleries for them to run round by ; and so up 
again ; with finer and finer work, till the Egyptians 
wondered whether they meant the thing for a tower 
or a pillar ; and I heard them saying to one another, 
1 It was nearly as pretty as lotus stalks ; and if it were 
' not for the ugly faces, there would be a fine temple, 
' if they were going to build it all with pillars as big 
1 as that ! ' But in a minute afterwards, — -just as the 
Gothic spirits had carried their work as high as the 
upper course, but three or four, of the pyramid, — the 
Egpytians called out to them to ' mind what they were 



174 Crystal Caprice. 

about, for the sand was running away from under one 
of their tower corners.' But it was too late to mind 
what they were about; for, in another instant, the whole 
tower sloped aside ; and the Gothic imps rose out of it 
like a flight of puffins, in a single cloud ; but screaming 
worse than any puffins you ever heard ; and down came 
the tower, all in a piece, like a falling poplar, with its 
head right on the flank of the pyramid ; against which 
it snapped short off. And of course that waked me ! 

Mary. What a shame of you to have such a 
dream, after all you have told us about Gothic 
architecture ! 

L. If you have understood anything I ever told 
you about it, you know that no architecture was ever 
corrupted more miserably ; or abolished more justly by 
the accomplishment of its own follies. Besides, even 
in its days of power, it was subject to catastrophes of 
this kind. I have stood too often, mourning, by the 
grand fragment of the apse of Beauvais, not to have 
that fact well burnt into me. Still, you must have 
seen, surely, that these imps were of the Flamboyant 
school ; or, at least, of the German schools corre- 
spondent with it in extravagance. 

Mary. But, then, where is the crystal about 
which you dreamed all this ? 

L. Here ; but I suppose little Pthah has touched 
it again, for it is very small. But, you see, here is the 



Crystal Caprice. 175 

pyramid, built of great square stones of fluor spar, 
straight up ; and here are the three little pinnacles of 
mischievous quartz, which have set themselves, at the 
same time, on the same foundation ; only they lean 
like the tower of Pisa, and come out obliquely at 
the side : and here is one great spire of quartz which 
seems as if it had been meant to stand straight up, 
a little way off; and then had fallen down against 
the pyramid base, breaking its pinnacle away. In 
reality, it has crystallized horizontally, and termi- 
nated imperfectly : but, then, by what caprice does 
one crystal form horizontally, when all the rest stand 
upright ? But this is nothing to the phantasies of 
fluor, and quartz, and some other such companions, 
when they get leave to do anything they like. I 
could show you fifty specimens, about every one of 
which you might fancy a new fairy tale. Not that, 
in truth, any crystals get leave to do quite what 
they like ; and many of them are sadly tired, and 
have little time for caprices — poor things ! 

Mary. I thought they always looked as if they 
were either in play or in mischief ! What trials 
have they ? 

L. Trials much like our own. Sickness, and 
starvation; fevers, and agues, and palsy; oppression; 
and old age, and the necessity of passing away in 
their time, like all else. If there's any pity in you, 



176 Crystal Caprice. 

you must come to-morrow, and take some part in 
these crystal griefs. 

Dora. I am sure we shall cry till our eyes are 
red. 

L. Ah, you may laugh, Dora : but I've been made 
grave, not once, nor twice, to see that even crystals 
1 cannot choose but be old ' at last. It may be but a 
shallow proverb of the Justice's ; but it is a shrewdly 
wide one. 

DORA {pensive for once). I suppose it is very 
dreadful to be old ! But then {brightening again) 
what should we do without our dear old friends 
and our nice old lecturers ? 

L. If all nice old lecturers were minded as little 
as one I know of 

DORA. And if they all meant as little what they 
say, would they not deserve it ? But we'll come — 
we'll come, and cry. 



LECTURE IX. 

CRYSTAL SORROWS. 



12 



LECTURE IX. 

CRYSTAL SORROWS. 
Working Lecture in Schoolroom. 

L. We have been hitherto talking, children, as if 
crystals might live, and play, and quarrel, and behave 
ill or well, according to their characters, without inter- 
ruption from anything else. But so far from this being 
so, nearly all crystals, whatever their characters, have 
to live a hard life of it, and meet with many misfor- 
tunes. If we could see far enough, we should rind, 
indeed, that, at the root, all their vices were misfor- 
tunes : but to-day I want you to see what sort of 
troubles the best crystals have to go through, occa- 
sionally, by no fault of their own. 

This black thing, which is one of the prettiest 
of the very few pretty black things in the world, 
is called * Tourmaline.' It may be transparent, and 
green, or red, as well as black ; and then no stone 
can be prettier ; (only, all the light that gets into it, 
I believe, comes out a good deal the worse ; and is 
not itself again for a long while). But this is the 
commonest state of it, — opaque, and as black as jet. 



180 Crystal Sorrows. 

Mary. What does ' Tourmaline ' mean ? 

L. They say it is Ceylanese, and I don't know 
Ceylanese ; but we may always be thankful for a 
graceful word, whatever it means. 

MARY. And what is it made of? 

L. A little of everything ; there's always flint, and 
clay, and magnesia in it ; and the black is iron, accord- 
ing to its fancy ; and there's boracic acid, if you know 
what that is ; and if you don't, I cannot tell you 
to-day ; and it doesn't signify : and there's potash, 
and soda ; and, on the whole, the chemistry of it is 
more like a mediaeval doctor's prescription, than the 
making of a respectable mineral : but it may, per- 
haps, be owing to the strange complexity of its make, 
that it has a notable habit which makes it, to me, one 
of the most interesting of minerals. You see these 
two crystals are broken right across, in many places, 
just as if they had been shafts of black marble fallen 
from a ruinous temple ; and here they lie, imbedded 
in white quartz, fragment succeeding fragment, keep- 
ing the line of the original crystal, while the quartz 
fills up the intervening spaces. Now tourmaline has 
a trick of doing this, more than any other mineral 
I know : here is another bit which I picked up on 
the glacier of Macugnaga ; it is broken, like a pillar 
built of very flat broad stones, into about thirty 
joints, and all these are heaved and warped away 



Crystal Sorrows. 181 

from each other sideways, almost into a line of 
steps : and then all is filled up with quartz paste. 
And here, lastly, is a green Indian piece, in which 
the pillar is first disjointed, and then wrung round 
into the shape of an S. 

Mary. How can this have been done ? 

L. There are a thousand ways in which it may 
have been done ; the difficulty is not to account for 
the doing of it ; but for the showing of it in some 
crystals, and not in others. You never by any chance 
get a quartz crystal broken or twisted in this way. 
If it break or twist at all, which it does sometimes, 
like the spire of Dijon, it is by its own will or fault ; 
it never seems to have been passively crushed. But, 
for the forces which cause this passive ruin of the 
tourmaline, — here is a stone which will show you 
multitudes of them in operation at once. It is known 
as - brecciated agate,' beautiful, as you see ; and 
highly valued as a pebble : yet so far as I can read 
or hear, no one has ever looked at it with the least 
attention. At the first glance, you see it is made of 
very fine red striped agates, which have been broken 
into small pieces, and fastened together again by 
paste, also of agate. There would be nothing won- 
derful in this, if this were all. It is well known 
that by the movements of strata, portions of rock 
are often shattered to pieces : — well known also that 



1 82 Crystal Sorrows. 

agate is a deposit of flint by water under certain 
conditions of heat and pressure : there is, therefore, 
nothing wonderful in an agate's being broken ; and 
nothing wonderful in its being mended with the solu- 
tion out of which it was itself originally congealed. 
And with this explanation, most people, looking at a 
brecciated agate, or brecciated anything, seem to be 
satisfied. I was so myself, for twenty years ; but, 
lately happening to stay for some time at the Swiss 
Baden, where the beach of the Limmat is almost 
wholly composed of brecciated limestones, I began 
to examine them thoughtfully ; and perceived, in the 
end, that they were, one and all, knots of as rich 
mystery as any poor little human brain was ever 
lost in. That piece of agate in your hand, Mary, 
will show you many of the common phenomena of 
breccias : but you need not knit your brows over it 
in that way ; depend upon it, neither you nor I shall 
ever know anything about the way it was made, as 
long as we live. 

DORA. That does not seem much to depend upon. 

L. Pardon me, puss. When once we gain some 
real notion of the extent and the unconquerableness 
of our ignorance, it is a very broad and restful 
thing to depend upon ; you can throw yourself upon 
it at ease, as on a cloud, to feast with the gods. You 
do not thenceforward trouble yourself, nor any one 



Crystal Sorrows. 183 

else, with theories, or the contradiction of theories ; 
you neither get headache nor heartburning ; and you 
nevermore waste your poor little store of strength, 
or allowance of time. 

However, there are certain facts, about this agate- 
making, which I can tell you ; and then you may look 
at it in a pleasant wonder as long as you like ; plea- 
sant wonder is no loss of time. 

First, then, it is not broken freely by a blow ; it 
is slowly wrung, or ground, to pieces. You can only 
with extreme dimness conceive the force exerted on 
mountains in transitional states of movement. You 
have all read a little geology ; and you know how 
coolly geologists talk of mountains being raised or 
depressed. They talk coolly of it, because they are 
accustomed to the fact ; but the very universality of 
the fact prevents us ,-from ever conceiving distinctly 
the conditions of force involved. You know I was 
living last year in Savoy : my house was on the 
back of a sloping mountain, which rose gradually 
for two miles behind it ; and then fell at once in 
a great precipice towards Geneva, going down three 
thousand feet in four or five cliffs, or steps. Now 
that whole group of cliffs had simply been torn 
away by sheer strength from the rocks below, as 
if the whole mass had been as soft as biscuit. 
Put four or five captain's biscuits on the floor, on 



184 Crystal Sorrows. 

the top of one another ; and try to break them 
all in half, not by bending, but by holding one 
half down, and tearing the other halves straight up ; 
— of course you will not be able to do it, but you will 
feel and comprehend the sort of force needed. Then, 
fancy each captain's biscuit a bed of rock, six or 
seven hundred feet thick ; and the whole mass torn 
straight through ; and one half heaved up three thou- 
sand feet, grinding against the other as it rose, — and 
you will have some idea of the making of the Mont 
Saleve. 

May. But it must crush the rocks all to dust ! 

L. No ; for there is no room for dust. The pres- 
sure is too great ; probably the heat developed alsp 
so great that the rock is made partly ductile ; but the 
worst of it is, that we can never see these parts of 
mountains in the state they were left in at the time of 
their elevation ; for it is precisely in these rents and 
dislocations that the crystalline power principally 
exerts itself. It is essentially a styptic power, and 
wherever the earth is torn, it heals and binds ; 
nay, the torture and grieving of the earth seem 
necessary to bring out its full energy ; for you only 
find the crystalline living power fully in action, 
where the rents and faults are deep and many. 

DORA. If you please, sir, — would you tell us — 
what are ' faults ' ? 



Crystal Sorrows. 185 

L. You never heard of such things ? 

Dora. Never in all our lives. 
. L. When a vein of rock which is going on 
smoothly, is interrupted by another troublesome little 
vein, which stops it, and puts it out, so that it* has to 
begin again in another place — that is called a fault. 
/ always think it ought to be called the fault of the 
vein that interrupts it ; but the miners always call 
it the fault of the vein that is interrupted. 

DORA. So it is, if it does not begin again where 
it left off. 

L. Well, that is certainly the gist of the business ; 
but, whatever good-natured old lecturers may do, 
the rocks have a bad habit, when they are once in- 
terrupted, of never asking ' Where was I ? ' 

DORA. When the two halves of the dining table 
came separate, yesterday, was that a ' fault ' ? 

L. Yes ; but not the table's. However, it is not a 
bad illustration, Dora. When beds of rock are only 
interrupted by a fissure, but remain at the same level, 
like the two halves of the table, it is not called a fault, 
but only a fissure ; but if one half of the table be 
either tilted higher than the other, or pushed to the 
side, so that the two parts will not fit, it is a fault. 
You had better read the chapter on faults in Jukes's 
Geology ; then you will know all about it. And this 
rent that I am telling you of in the Saleve, is 



1 86 Crystal Sorrows. 

one only of myriads, to which are owing the forms 
of the Alps, as, I believe, of all great mountain 
chains. Wherever you see a precipice on any scale 
of real magnificence, you will nearly always find 
it owing to some dislocation of this kind ; but the 
point of chief wonder to me, is the delicacy of 
the touch by which these gigantic rents have been 
apparently accomplished. Note, however, that we 
have no clear evidence, hitherto, of the time taken 
to produce any of them. We know that a change of 
temperature alters the position and the angles of the 
atoms of crystals, and also the entire bulk of rocks. 
We know that in all volcanic, and the greater part 
of all subterranean action, temperatures are continually 
changing, and therefore masses of rock must be ex- 
panding or contracting, with infinite slowness, but with 
infinite force. This pressure must result in mechani- 
cal strain somewhere, both in their own substance, and 
in that of the rocks surrounding them ; and we can 
form no conception of the result of irresistible pres- 
sure, applied so as to rend and raise, with impercep- 
tible slowness of gradation, masses thousands of feet 
in thickness. We want some experiments tried on 
masses of iron and stone ; and we can't get them 
tried, because Christian creatures never will seriously 
and sufficiently spend money, except to find out the 
shortest ways of killing each other. But, besides this 



Crystal Sorrows. 187 

slow kind of pressure, there is evidence of more or 
less sudden violence, on the same terrific scale ; and, 
through it all, the wonder, as I said, is always to me 
the delicacy of touch. I cut a block of the Saleve 
limestone from the edge of one of the principal faults 
which have formed the precipice ; it is a lovely com- 
pact limestone, and the fault itself is filled up with a 
red breccia, formed of the crushed fragments of the 
torn rock, cemented by a rich red crystalline paste. 
I have had the piece I cut from it smoothed, and 
polished across the junction ; here it is ; and you 
may now pass your soft little fingers over the sur- 
face, without so much as feeling the place where a 
rock which all the hills of England might have been 
sunk in the body of, and not a summit seen, was 
torn asunder through that whole thickness, as a thin 
dress is torn when you tread upon it. 

{The audience examine the stone and touch it 

timidly ; but the matter remains inconceivable 

to them?) 
Mary {struck by the beauty of the stone). But 
this is almost marble ? 

L. It is quite marble. And another singular point 
in the business, to my mind, is that these stones 
which men have been cutting into slabs, for thousands 
of years, to ornament their principal buildings with, — 
and which, under the general name of 'marble/ have 



1 88 Crystal Sorrows. 

been the delight of the eyes, and the wealth of archi- 
tecture, among all civilised nations, — are precisely 
those on which the signs and brands of these earth- 
agonies have been chiefly struck ; and there is not a 
purple vein nor flaming zone in them, which is not the 
record of their ancient torture. What a boundless 
capacity for sleep, and for serene stupidity, there is in 
the human mind ! Fancy reflective beings, who cut 
and polish stones for three thousand years, for the 
sake of the pretty stains upon them ; and educate 
themselves to an art at last, (such as it is,) of imi- 
tating these veins by dexterous painting : — and never 
a curious soul of them, all that while, asks, ' What 
painted the rocks ? ' 

{The audience look dejected, and ashamed of 

themselves^) 
The fact is, we are all, and always, asleep, through 
our lives ; and it is only by pinching ourselves very 
hard that we ever come to see, or understand, 
anything. At least, it is not always we who pinch 
ourselves ; sometimes other people pinch us ; which 
I suppose is very good of them, — or other things, 
which I suppose is very proper of them. But it is 
a sad life ; made up chiefly of naps and pinches. 

{Some of the audience, on this, appearing to think 

that the others require pinching, the LECTURER 

changes the subject.) 



Crystal Sorrows. 189 

Now, however, for once, look at a piece of marble 
carefully, and think about it. You see this is one 
side of the fault ; the other side is down or up, nobody 
knows where ; but, on this side, you can trace the 
evidence of the dragging and tearing action. All 
along the edge of this marble, the ends of the fibres 
of the rock are torn, here an inch, and there half an 
inch away from each other ; and you see the exact 
places where they fitted, before they were torn sepa- 
rate ; and you see the rents are now all filled up with 
the sanguine paste, full of the broken pieces of the 
rock; the paste itself seems to have been half melted, 
and partly to have also melted the edge of the 
fragments it contains, and then to have crystallised 
with them, and around them. And the brecciated 
agate I first showed you contains exactly the same 
phenomena ; a zoned crystallisation going on amidst 
the cemented fragments partly altering the struc- 
ture of those fragments themselves, and subject to 
continual change, either in the intensity of its own 
power, or in the nature of the materials submitted 
to it ; — so that, at one time, gravity acts upon them, 
and disposes them in horizontal layers, or causes 
them to droop in stalactites ; and at another, gravity 
is entirely defied, and the substances in solution are 
crystallised in bands of equal thickness on every side 
of the cell. It would require a course of lectures 



i go Crystal Sorrows. 

longer than these, (I have a great mind, — you 
have behaved so saucily — to stay and give them) 
to describe to you the phenomena of this kind, 
in agates and chalcedonies only ;- — nay, there is a 
single sarcophagus in the British Museum, covered 
with grand sculpture of the 1 8th dynasty, which 
contains in the magnificent breccia (agates and 
jaspers imbedded in porphyry), out of which it is 
hewn, material for the thought of years ; and record 
of the earth-sorrow of ages, in comparison with the 
duration of which, the Egyptian letters tell us but 
the history of the evening and morning of a day. 

Agates, I think, of all stones, confess most of their 
past history ; but all crystallisation goes on under, 
and partly records, circumstances of this kind — cir- 
cumstances of infinite variety, but always involving 
difficulty, interruption, and change of condition at 
different times. Observe, first, you have the whole 
mass of the rock in motion, either contracting itself, 
and so gradually widening the cracks ; or being 
compressed, and thereby closing them, and crushing 
their edges ; — and, if one part of its substance be 
softer, at the given temperature, than another, pro- 
bably squeezing that softer substance out into the 
veins. Then the veins themselves, when the rock 
leaves them open by its contraction, act with various 
power of suction upon its substance ; — by capillary 



Crystal Sorrows. 1 9 1 

attraction when they are fine, — by that of pure va- 
cuity when they are larger, or by changes in the con- 
stitution and condensation of the mixed gases with 
which they have been originally filled. Those gases 
themselves may be supplied in all variation of volume 
and power from below ; or, slowly, by the decomposi- 
tion of the rocks themselves : and, at changing tem- 
peratures, must exert relatively changing forces of 
decomposition and combination on the walls of the 
veins they fill ; while water, at every degree of heat 
and pressure, (from beds of everlasting ice, alternate 
with cliffs of native rock, to volumes of red hot, or 
white hot, steam) congeals, and drips, and throbs, 
and thrills, from crag to crag ; and breathes from 
pulse to pulse of foaming or fiery arteries, whose 
beating is felt through chains of the great islands of 
the Indian seas, as your own pulses lift your bracelets, 
and makes whole kingdoms of the world quiver in 
deadly earthquake, as if they were light as aspen 
leaves. And, remember, the poor little crystals have 
to live their lives, and mind their own affairs, in the 
midst of all this, as best they may. They are 
wonderfully like human creatures, — forget all that is 
going on if they don't see it, however dreadful ; and 
never think what is to happen to-morrow. They are 
spiteful or loving, and indolent or painstaking, and 
orderly or licentious, with no thought whatever of the 



192 Crystal Sorrows. 

lava or the flood which may break over them any day 
and evaporate them into air bubbles, or wash them 
into a solution of salts. And you may look at them, 
once understanding the surrounding conditions of 
their fate, with an endless interest. You will see 
crowds of unfortunate little crystals, who have been 
forced to constitute themselves in a hurry, their dis- 
solving element being fiercely scorched away ; you 
will see them doing their best, bright and numberless, 
but tiny. Then you will find indulged crystals, who 
have had centuries to form themselves in, and have 
changed their mind and ways continually ; and have 
been tired, and taken heart again ; and have been sick, 
and got well again ; and thought they would try a 
different diet, and then thought better of it; and made 
but a poor use of their advantages, after all. And 
others you will see, who have begun life as wicked 
crystals ; and then have been impressed by alarming 
circumstances, and have become converted crystals, 
and behaved amazingly for a little while, and fallen 
away again, and ended, but discreditably, perhaps 
even in decomposition ; so that one doesn't know what 
will become of them. And sometimes you will see 
deceitful crystals, that look as soft as velvet, and are 
deadly to all near them ; and sometimes you will see 
deceitful crystals, that seem flint-edged, like our little 
quartz-crystal of a housekeeper here, (hush ! Dora,) 



Crystal Sorrows. 193 

and are endlessly gentle and true wherever gentleness 
and truth are needed. And sometimes you will see 
little child-crystals put to school like school-girls, and 
made to stand in rows ; and taken the greatest care 
of, and taught how to hold themselves up, and 
behave : and sometimes you will see unhappy little 
child-crystals left to lie about in the dirt, and pick 
up their living, and learn manners, where they can. 
And sometimes you will see fat crystals eating up 
thin ones, like great capitalists and little labourers ; 
and politico-economic crystals teaching the stupid 
ones how to eat each other, and cheat each other ; 
and foolish crystals getting in the way of wise 
ones ; and impatient crystals spoiling the plans of 
patient ones, irreparably ; just as things go on in 
the world. And sometimes you may see hypocritical 
crystals taking the shape of others, though they are 
nothing like in their minds ; and vampire crystals 
eating out the hearts of others ; and hermit-crab 
crystals living in the shells of others ; and parasite 
crystals living on the means of others ; and courtier 
crystals glittering in attendance upon others ; and all 
these, besides the two great companies of war and 
peace, who ally themselves, resolutely to attack, or 
resolutely to defend. And for the close, you see the 
broad shadow and deadly force of inevitable fate, 
above all this ; you see the multitudes of crystals 

13 



194 Crystal Sorrows. 

whose time has come ; not a set time, as with us, but 
yet a time, sooner or later, when they all must give 
up their crystal ghosts : — when the strength by which 
they grew, and the strength given them to breathe, 
pass away from them ; and they fail, and are con- 
sumed, and vanish away : and another generation is 
brought to life, framed out of their ashes. 

Mary. It is very terrible. Is it not the com- 
plete fulfilment, down into the very dust, of that 
verse : ' The whole creation groaneth and travaileth 
in pain ' ? 

L. I do not know that it is in pain, Mary : at 
least, the evidence tends to show that there is much 
more pleasure than pain, as soon as sensation 
becomes possible. 

LUCILLA. But then, surely, if we are told that 
it is pain, it must be pain ? 

L. Yes ; if we are told ; and told in the way you 
mean, Lucilla ; but nothing is said of the propor- 
tion to pleasure. Unmitigated pain would kill any 
of us in a few hours ; pain equal to our pleasures 
would make us loathe life ; the word itself cannot 
be applied to the lower conditions of matter, in its 
ordinary sense. But wait till to-morrow to ask me 
about this. To-morrow is to be kept for questions 
and difficulties ; let us keep to the plain facts to-day. 
There is yet one group of facts connected with this 



Crystal Sorrows. 195 

rending of the rocks, which I especially want you 
to notice. You know, when you have mended a 
very old dress, quite meritoriously, till it won't mend 
any more 

Egypt {interrupting). Could not you sometimes 
take gentlemen's work to illustrate by ? 

L. Gentlemen's work is rarely so useful as yours, 
Egypt ; and when it is useful, girls cannot easily 
understand it. 

Dora. I am sure we should understand it better 
than gentlemen understand about sewing. 

L. My dear, I hope I always speak modestly, 
and under correction, when I touch upon matters 
of the kind too high for me ; and besides, I never 
intend to speak otherwise than respectfully of sew- 
ing ; — though you always seem to think I am 
laughing at you. In all seriousness, illustrations 
from sewing are those which Neith likes me best 
to use ; and which young ladies ought to like every- 
body to use. What do you think the beautiful word 
' wife ' comes from ? 

DORA {tossing her head). I don't think it is a 
particularly beautiful word. 

L. Perhaps not. At your ages you may think 
' bride ' sounds better ; but wife's the word for wear, 
depend upon it. It is the great word in which the 
English and Latin languages conquer the French 



196 Crystal Sorrows. 

and the Greek. I hope the French will some day 
get a word for it, yet, instead of their dreadful 
1 femme.' But what do you think it comes from ? 

DORA. I never did think about it. 

L. Nor you, Sibyl ? 

Sibyl. No ; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped 
there. 

L. Yes ; but the great good of Saxon words is, 
that they usually do mean something. Wife means 
1 weaver.' You have all the right to call yourselves 
little ' housewives,' when you sew neatly. 

Dora. But I don't think we want to call our- 
selves ' little housewives.' 

L. You must either be house- Wives, or house- 
Moths ; remember that. In the deep sense, you 
must either weave men's fortunes, and embroider 
them ; or feed upon, and bring them to decay. 
You had better let me keep my sewing illustration, 
and help me out with it. 

DORA. Well, we'll hear it, under protest. 

L. You have heard it before ; but with reference 
to other matters. When it is said, ' no man putteth a 
piece of new cloth on an old garment, else it taketh 
from the old,' does it not mean that the new piece 
tears the old one away at the sewn edge ? 

DORA. Yes ; certainly. 

L. And when you mend a decayed stuff with 



Crystal Sorrows. 197 

strong thread, does not the whole edge come away 
sometimes, when it tears again ? 

Dora. Yes ; and then it is of no use to mend 
it any more. 

L. Well, the rocks don't seem to think that ; 
but the same thing happens to them continually. I 
told you they were full of rents, or veins. Large 
masses of rock are sometimes as full of veins as 
your hand is ; and of veins nearly as fine ; (only 
you know a rock vein does not mean a tube, but 
a crack or cleft). Now these clefts are mended, 
usually, with the strongest material the rock can 
find ; and often literally with threads ; for the 
gradually opening rent seems to draw the substance 
it is filled with into fibres, which cross from one side 
of it to the other, and are partly crystalline ; so that, 
when the crystals become distinct, the fissure has often 
exactly the look of a tear, brought together with 
strong cross stitches. Now when this is completely 
done, and all has been fastened and made firm, 
perhaps some new change of temperature may occur, 
and the rock begin to contract again. Then the old 
vein must open wider ; or else another open elsewhere. 
If the old vein widen, it may do so at its centre ; but 
it constantly happens, with well-filled veins, that the 
cross stitches are too strong to break : the walls of the 
vein, instead, are torn away by them ; and another 



198 Crystal Sorrows. 

little supplementary vein — often three or four succes- 
sively — will be thus formed at the side of the first. 

Mary. That is really very much like our work. 
But what do the mountains use to sew with ? 

L. Quartz, whenever they can get it ; pure lime- 
stones are obliged to be content with carbonate of 
lime ; but most mixed rocks can find some quartz 
for themselves. Here is a piece of black slate from 
the Buet : it looks merely like dry dark mud ; — you 
could not think there was any quartz in it ; but, you 
see, its rents are all stitched together with beautiful 
white thread, which is the purest quartz, so close 
drawn that you can break it like flint, in the mass ; 
but, where it has been exposed to the weather, the 
fine fibrous structure is shown : and, more than that, 
you see the threads have been all twisted and pulled 
aside, this way and the other, by the warpings and 
shifting of the sides of the vein as it widened. 

Mary. It is wonderful ! But is that going on 
still ? Are the mountains being torn and sewn 
together again at this moment ? 

L. Yes, certainly, my dear : but I think, just as 
certainly (though geologists differ on this matter), 
not with the violence, or on the scale, of their 
ancient ruin and renewal. All things seem to be 
tending towards a condition of at least temporary 
rest ; and that groaning and travailing of the 



Crystal Sorrows. 199 

creation, as, assuredly, not wholly in pain, is not, 
in the full sense, ' until now.' 

Mary. I want so much to ask you about that ! 

Sibyl. Yes ; and we all want to ask you about 
a great many other things besides. 

L. It seems to me that you have got quite as 
many new ideas as are good for any of you at 
present : and I should not like to burden you with 
more ; but I must see that those you have are 
clear, if I can make them so ; so we will have one 
more talk for answer of questions, mainly. Think 
over all the ground, and make your difficulties 
thoroughly presentable. Then we'll see what we 
can make of them. 

Dora. They shall all be dressed in their very 
best ; and curtsey as they come in. 

L. No, no, Dora ; no curtseys, if you please. I 
had enough of them the day you all took a fit of 
reverence, and curtsied me out of the room 

DORA. But, you know, we cured ourselves of the 
fault, at once, by that fit. We have never been the 
least respectful since. And the difficulties will only 
curtsey themselves out of the room, I hope ; — come 
in at one door — vanish at the other. 

L. What a pleasant world it would be, if all its 
difficulties were taught to behave so ! However, 
one can generally make something, or (better still) 



200 Crystal Sorrows. 

nothing, or at least less, of them, if they thoroughly 
know their own minds ; and your difficulties — I 
must say that for you, children, — generally do know 
their own minds, as you do yourselves. 

Dora. That is very kindly said for us. Some 
people would not allow so much as that girls had 
any minds to know. 

L. They will at least admit you have minds to 
change, Dora. 

Mary. You might have left us the last speech, 
without a retouch. But we'll put our little minds, 
such as they are, in the best trim we can, for to- 
morrow. 



LECTURE X. 

THE CR YS TA L RES T. 



LECTURE X. 

THE CRYSTAL REST. 

Evening. The fireside. L.'s armchair in the 
comfortablest corner. 

L. (perceiving various arrangements being made of 
footstool, cushion, screen, and the like). Yes, yes, it's 
all very fine ; and I am to sit here to be asked 
questions till supper-time, am I ? 

DORA. I don't think you can have any supper 
to-night : — we've got so much to ask. 

Lily. Oh, Miss Dora ! We can fetch it him 
here, you know, so nicely ! 

L. Yes, Lily, that will be pleasant, with com- 
petitive examination going on over one's plate ; the 
competition being among the examiners. Really, 
now that I know what teasing things girls are, 
I don't so much wonder that people used to put 
up patiently with the dragons who took them for 
supper. But I can't help myself, I suppose ; — no 
thanks to St. George. Ask away, children, and I'll 
answer as civilly as may be. 



204 The Crystal Rest. 

Dora. We don't so much care about being an- 
swered civilly, as about not being asked things back 
again. 

L. ' Ayez seulement la patience que je pare.' 
There shall be no requitals. 

Dora. Well, then, first of all— What shall we 
ask first, Mary ? 

Mary. It does not matter. I think all the 
questions come into one, at last, nearly. 

Dora. You know, you always talk as if the 
crystals were alive ; and we never understand how 
much you are in play, and how much in earnest. 
That's the first thing. 

L. Neither do I understand, myself, my dear, 
how much I am in earnest. The stones puzzle me 
as much as I puzzle you. They look as if they 
were alive, and make me speak as if they were ; and 
I do not in the least know how much truth there 
is in the appearance. I'm not to ask things back 
again to-night, but all questions of this sort lead 
necessarily to the one main question, which we 
asked, before, in vain, f What is it to be alive ? ' 

Dora. Yes ; but we want to come back to that : 
for we've been reading scientific books about the 
1 conservation of forces,' and it seems all so grand, 
and wonderful ; and the experiments are so pretty : 
and I suppose it must be all right : but then the 



The Crystal Rest 205 

books never speak as if there were any such thing 
as ' life.' 

L. They mostly omit that part of the subject, 
certainly, Dora : but they are beautifully right as far 
as they go : and life is not a convenient element to 
deal with. They seem to have been getting some 
of it into and out of bottles, in their ' ozone ' and 
1 antizone ' lately : but they still know little of it ; 
and, certainly, I know less. 

DORA. You promised not to be provoking, to- 
night. 

L. Wait a minute. Though, quite truly, I know 
less of the secrets of life than the philosophers do, I 
yet know one corner of ground on which we artists 
can stand, literally as ( Life Guards ' at bay, as 
steadily as the Guards at Inkermann ; however 
hard the philosophers push. And you may stand 
with us, if once you learn to draw nicely. 

DORA. I'm sure we are all trying ! but tell us 
where we may stand. 

L. You may always stand by Form, against Force. 
To a painter the essential character of anything is the 
form of it ; and the philosophers cannot touch that. 
They come and tell you, for instance, that there is 
as much heat, or motion, or calorific energy, (or what- 
ever else they like to call it) in a tea-kettle as in a 
Giereagle. Very good ; that is so ; and it is very 



206 The Crystal Rest. 

interesting. It requires just as much heat as will 
boil the kettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to his nest ; 
and as much more to bring him down again on a 
hare or a partridge. But we painters, acknowledg- 
ing the equality and similarity of the kettle and the 
bird in all scientific respects, attach, for our part, 
our principal interest to the difference in their forms. 
For us, the primarily cognisable facts, in the two 
things, are, that the kettle has a spout, and the eagle 
a beak ; the one a lid on its back, the other a pair of 
wings ; — not to speak of the distinction also of voli- 
tion, which the philosophers may properly call merely 
a form or mode of force ; — but then, to an artist, the 
form, or mode, is the gist of the business. The kettle 
chooses to sit still on the hob ; the eagle to recline 
on the air. It is the fact of the choice, not the equal 
degree of temperature in the fulfilment of it, which 
appears to us the more interesting circumstance ; — 
though the other is very interesting too. Exceed- 
ingly so ! Don't laugh, children ; the philosophers 
have been doing quite splendid work lately, in their 
own way : especially, the transformation of force into 
light is a great piece of systematised discovery ; 
and this notion about the sun's being supplied with 
his flame by ceaseless meteoric hail is grand, and 
looks very likely to be true. Of course, it is only the 
old gunlock, — flint and steel, — on a large scale : but 



The Crystal Rest. 207 

the order and majesty of it are sublime. Still, we 
sculptors and painters care little about it. ' It is very 
fine,' we say, ■ and very useful, this knocking the light 
1 out of the sun, or into it, by an eternal cataract of 
' planets. But you may hail away, so, for ever, and 
'you will not knock out what we can. Here is a bit 
1 of silver, not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with 
1 a single hammer stroke, one of us, two thousand 
1 and odd years ago, hit out the head of the Apollo 
' of Clazomenae. It is merely a matter of form ; 
' but if any of you philosophers, with your whole 
' planetary system to hammer with, can hit out such 
' another bit of silver as this, — we will take off our 
' hats to you. For the present, we keep them on.' 

Mary. Yes, I understand ; and that is nice ; but 
I don't think we shall any of us like having only 
form to depend upon. 

L. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, 
my dear. 

Mary. It does not seem to separate us from the 
dust of the ground. It is that breathing of the life 
which we want to understand. 

L. So you should : but hold fast to the form, and 
defend that first, as distinguished from the mere 
transition of forces. Discern the moulding hand of 
the potter commanding the clay, from his merely 
beating foot, as it turns the wheel. If you can find 



208 The Crystal Rest. 

incense, in the vase, afterwards, — well : but it is curi- 
ous how far mere form will carry you ahead of the 
philosophers. For instance, with regard to the most 
interesting of all their modes of force — light ; — they 
never consider how far the existence of it depends on 
the putting of certain vitreous and nervous substances 
into the formal arrangement which we call an eye. 
The German philosophers began the attack, long ago, 
on the other side, by telling us there was no such 
thing as light at all, unless we chose to see it : 
now, German and English, both, have reversed their 
engines, and insist that light would be exactly the 
same light that it is, though nobody could ever see it. 
The fact being that the force must be there, and the 
eyes there ; and ' light ' means the effect of the one on 
the other ; — and perhaps, also^(Plato saw farther 
into that mystery than any one has since, that I 
know of), — on something a little way within the 
eyes ; but we may stand quite safe, close behind 
the retina, and defy the philosophers. 

SlBYL. But I don't care so much about defying 
the philosophers, if only one could get a clear idea 
of life, or soul, for one's self. 

L. Well, Sibyl, you used to know more about it, 
in that cave of yours, than any of us. I was just 
going to ask you about inspiration, and the golden 
bough, and the like ; only I remembered I was not to 



The Crystal Rest. 209 

ask anything. But, will not you, at least, tell us 
whether the ideas of Life, as the power of putting 
things together, or ' making ' them ; and of Death, as 
the power of pushing things separate, or ' unmaking ' 
them, may not be very simply held in balance against 
each other ? 

Sibyl. No, I am not in my cave to-night ; and 
cannot tell you anything. 

L. I think they may. Modern Philosophy is a 
great separator ; it is little more than the expan- 
sion of Moliere's great sentence, ' II s'ensuit de la, 
que tout ce qu'il y a de beau est dans les diction- 
naires ; il n'y a que les mots qui sont transposes.' 
But when you used to be in your cave, Sibyl, 
and to be inspired, there was, (and there remains 
still in some small measure) beyond the merely 
formative and sustaining power, another, which we 
painters call ' passion ' — I don't know what the 
philosophers call it ; we know it makes people red, 
or white ; and therefore it must be something, itself : 
and perhaps it is the most truly ' poetic ' or 
' making ' force of all, creating a world of its own 
out of a glance, or a sigh : and the want of passion 
is perhaps the truest death, or * unmaking ' of every- 
thing ; — even of stones. By the way, you . were 
all reading about that ascent of the Aiguille Verte, 
the other day ? 

14 



210 The Crystal Rest. 

SIBYL. Because you had told us it was so difficult, 
you thought it could not be ascended. 

L. Yes ; I believed the Aiguille Verte Would 
have held its own. But do you recollect what one 
of the climbers exclaimed, when he first felt sure of 
reaching the summit ? 

Sibyl. Yes, it was, ' Oh, Aiguille Verte, vous 
etes morte, vous etes morte ! ' 

L. That was true instinct. Real philosophic 
joy. Now can you at all fancy the difference 
between that feeling of triumph in a mountain's 
death ; and the exultation of your beloved poet, in 
its life — 

1 Quantus Athos, aut quantus Eryx, aut ipse coruscis 
Quum fremit ilicibus, quantus, gaudetque nivali 
Vertice, se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras ' ? 

Dora. You must translate for us mere house- 
keepers, please ; — whatever the cave-keepers may 
know about it. 

Mary. Will Dryden do ? 

L. No. Dryden is a far way worse than no- 
thing, and nobody will ' do.' You can't translate it. 
But this is all you need know, that the lines are full 
of a passionate sense of the Apennines' fatherhood, or 
protecting power, over Italy ; and of sympathy with 
their joy in their snowy strength in heaven ; and with 



The Crystal Rest. 211 

the same joy, shuddering through all the leaves of 
their forests. 

MARY. Yes, that is a difference indeed ! but then, 
you know, one can't help feeling that it is fanciful. 
It is very delightful to imagine the mountains to be 
alive ; but then, — are they alive ? 

L. It seems to me, on the whole, Mary, that the 
feelings of the purest and most mightily passioned 
human souls are likely to be the truest. Not, indeed, 
if they do not desire to know the truth, or blind 
themselves to it that they may please themselves with 
passion ; for then they are no longer pure : but if, con- 
tinually seeking and accepting the truth as far as it is 
discernible, they trust their Maker for the integrity of 
the instincts He has gifted them with, and rest in the 
sense of a higher truth which they cannot demonstrate, 
I think they will be most in the right, so. 

DORA and JESSIE (clapping their hands). Then 
we really may believe that the mountains are living ? 
f L. You may at least earnestly believe, that the 
presence of the spirit which culminates in your own 
life, shows itself in dawning, wherever the dust of 
the earth begins to assume any orderly and lovely 
state. You will find it impossible to separate this 
idea of gradated manifestation from that of the vital 
power. Things are not either wholly alive, or wholly 
dead. They are less or more alive. Take the nearest, 



212 The Crystal Rest. 

most easily examined instance — the life of a flower. 
Notice what a different degree and kind of life there 
is in the calyx and the corolla. The calyx is nothing 
but the swaddling clothes of the flower ; the child- 
blossom is bound up in it, hand and foot ; guarded in 
it, restrained by it, till the time of birth. The shell 
is hardly more subordinate to the germ in the egg, 
than the calyx to the blossom. It bursts at last ; but 
it never lives as the corolla does. It may fall at the 
moment its task is fulfilled, as in the poppy ; or wither 
gradually, as in the buttercup ; or persist in a ligneous 
apathy, after the flower is dead, as in the rose ; or 
harmonise itself so as to share in the aspect of the 
real flower, as in the lily ; but it never shares in the 
corolla's bright passion of life. And the gradations 
which thus exist between the different members of 
organic creatures, exist no less between the different 
ranges of organism. We know no higher or more 
energetic life than our own ; but there seems to me 
this great good in the idea of gradation of life — it 
admits the idea of a life above us, in other creatures, 
as much nobler than ours, as ours is nobler than that 
of the dust. 

Mary. I am glad you have said that ; for I know 
Violet and Lucilla and May want to ask you some- 
thing ; indeed, we all do ; only you frightened Violet 
so, about the ant-hill, that she can't say a word ; and 



The Crystal Rest. 213 

May is afraid of your teasing her, too : but I know 
they are wondering why you are always telling them 
about heathen gods and goddesses, as if you half 
believed in them ; and you represent them as good ; 
and then we see there is really a kind of truth in the 
stories about them ; and we are all puzzled : and, in 
this, we cannot even make our difficulty quite clear 
to ourselves ; — it would be such a long confused ques- 
tion, if we could ask you all we should like to know. 

L. Nor is it any wonder, Mary ; for this is indeed 
the longest, and the most wildly confused question 
that reason can deal with ; but I will try to give 
you, quickly, a few clear ideas about the heathen 
gods, which you may follow out afterwards, as your 
knowledge increases. 

Every heathen conception of deity in which 
you are likely to be interested, has three distinct 
characters : — 

I. It has a physical character. It represents some 
of the great powers or objects of nature — -sun or 
moon, or heaven, or the winds, or the sea. And 
the fables first related about each deity represent, 
figuratively, the action of the natural power which it 
represents ; such as the rising and setting of the 
sun, the tides of the sea, and so on. 

II. It has an ethical character, and represents, 
in its history, the moral dealings of God with man. 



214 The Crystal Rest. 

Thus Apollo is first, physically, the sun contending 
with darkness ; but morally, the power of divine life 
contending with corruption. Athena is, physically, 
the air ; morally, the breathing of the divine spirit 
of wisdom. Neptune is, physically, the sea ; morally, 
the supreme power of agitating passion ; and so on. 

III. It has, at last, a personal character ; and 
is realised in the minds of its worshippers as a 
living spirit, with whom men may speak face to 
face, as a man speaks to his friend. 

Now it is impossible to define exactly how far, 
at any period of a national religion, these three 
ideas are mingled ; or how far one prevails over the 
other. Each enquirer usually takes up one of these 
ideas, and pursues it, to the exclusion of the others ; 
no impartial efforts seem to have been made to discern 
the real state of the heathen imagination in its suc- 
cessive phases. For the question is not at all what 
a mythological figure meant in its origin ; but what 
it became in each subsequent mental development of 
the nation inheriting the thought. Exactly in pro- 
portion to the mental and moral insight of any race, 
its mythological figures mean more to it, and be- 
come more real. An early and savage race means 
nothing more, (because it has nothing more to mean,) 
by its Apollo, than the sun ; while a cultivated Greek 
means every operation of divine intellect and justice. 



The Crystal Rest. 215 

The Neith, of Egypt, meant, physically, little more 
than the blue of the air ; but the Greek, in a climate 
of alternate storm and calm, represented the wild 
fringes of the storm-cloud by the serpents of her 
aegis ; and the lightning and cold of the highest 
thunder-clouds, by the Gorgon on her shield : while 
morally, the same types represented to him the mys- 
tery and changeful terror of knowledge, as her spear 
and helm its ruling and defensive power. And no 
study can be more interesting, or more useful to you, 
than that of the different meanings which have been 
created by great nations, and great poets, out of 
mythological figures given them, at first, in utter 
simplicity. But when we approach them in their 
third, or personal, character (and, for its power over 
the whole national mind, this is far the leading one), 
we are met at once by questions which may well put 
all of you at pause. Were they idly imagined to be 
real beings ? and did they so usurp the place of the 
true God ? Or were they actually real beings, — 
evil spirits, — leading men away from the true God ? 
Or is it conceivable that they might have been real 
beings, — good spirits, — entrusted with some message 
from the true God ? These were the questions you 
wanted to ask ; were they not, Lucilla ? 

LuciLLA. Yes, indeed. 

L. Well, Lucilla, the answer will much depend 



216 The Crystal Rest. 

upon the clearness of your faith in the personality of 
the spirits which are described in the book of your 
own religion ; — their personality, observe, as dis- 
tinguished from merely symbolical visions. For 
instance, when Jeremiah has the vision of the 
seething pot with its mouth to the north, you 
know that this which he sees is not a real thing ; 
but merely a significant dream. Also, when Ze- 
chariah sees the speckled horses among the myrtle 
trees in the bottom, you still may suppose the 
vision symbolical ; — you do not think of them as 
real spirits, like Pegasus, seen in the form of horses. 
But when you are told of the four riders in the 
Apocalypse, a distinct sense of personality begins to 
force itself upon you. And though you might, in a 
dull temper, think that (for one instance of all) the 
fourth rider on the pale horse was merely a symbol 
of the power of death, — in your stronger and more 
earnest moods you will rather conceive of him as a 
real and living angel. And when you look back 
from the vision of the Apocalypse to the account of 
the destruction of the Egyptian first-born, and of the 
army of Sennacherib, and again to David's vision at 
the threshing floor of Araunah, the idea of person- 
ality in this death-angel becomes entirely defined, 
just as in the appearance of the angels to Abraham, 
Manoah, or Mary. 



The Crystal Rest. 217 

Now, when you have once consented to this idea 
of a personal spirit, must not the question in- 
stantly follow : ' Does this spirit exercise its functions 
towards one race of men only, or towards all men ? 
Was it an angel of death to the Jew only, or to 
the Gentile also ? ' You find a certain Divine agency 
made visible to a King of Israel, as an armed 
angel, executing vengeance, of which one special 
purpose was to lower his kingly pride. You find 
another (or perhaps the same) agency, made 
visible to a Christian prophet as an angel standing 
in the sun, calling to the birds that fly under 
heaven to come, that they may eat the flesh of 
kings. Is there anything impious in the thought that 
the same agency might have been expressed to a 
Greek king, or Greek seer, by similar visions ? — that 
this figure, standing in the sun, and armed with the 
sword, or the bow (whose arrows were drunk with 
blood), and exercising especially its power in the 
humiliation of the proud, might, at first, have been 
called only ' Destroyer,' and afterwards, as the light, 
or sun, of justice, was recognised in the chastisement, 
called also, ' Physician ' or ' Healer ' ? If you feel 
hesitation in admitting the possibility of such a 
manifestation, I believe you will find it is caused, 
partly indeed by such trivial things as the difference 
to your ear between Greek and English terms ; but, 



218 The Crystal Rest. 

far more, by uncertainty in your own mind respecting 
the nature and truth of the visions spoken of in the 
Bible. Have any of you intently examined the 
nature of your belief in them ? You, for instance, 
Lucilla, who think often, and seriously, of such 
things ? 

Lucilla. No ; I never could tell what to believe 
about them. I know they must be true in some 
way or other ; and I like reading about them. 

L. Yes ; and I like reading about them too, 
Lucilla; as I like reading other grand poetry. But, 
surely, we ought both to do more than like it ? Will 
God be satisfied with us, think you, if we read His 
words, merely for the sake of an entirely meaningless 
poetical sensation ? 

Lucilla. But do not the people who give them- 
selves to seek out the meaning of these things, often 
get very strange, and extravagant ? 

L. More than that, Lucilla. They often go mad. 
That abandonment of the mind to religious theory, or 
contemplation, is the very thing I have been pleading 
with you against. I never said you should set your- 
self to discover the meanings : but you should 
take careful pains to understand them, so far as 
they are clear ; and you should always accurately 
ascertain the state of your mind about them. 
I want you never to read merely for the pleasure 



The Crystal Rest. 219 

of fancy ; — still less as a formal religious duty ; 
(else you might as well take to repeating Paters at 
once ; for it is surely wiser to repeat one thing we 
understand, than read a thousand which we cannot). 
Either, therefore, acknowledge the passages to be, for 
the present, unintelligible to you ; or else determine 
the sense in which you at present receive them ; 
or, at all events, the different senses between which 
you clearly see that you must choose. Make either 
your belief, or your difficulty, definite ; but do not go 
on, all through your life, believing nothing intel- 
ligently, and yet supposing that your having read 
the words of a divine book must give you the 
right to despise every religion but your own. I 
assure you, strange as it may seem, our scorn 
of Greek tradition depends, not on our belief, 
but our disbelief, of our own traditions. We 
have, as yet, no sufficient clue to the meaning 
of either ; but you will always find that, in pro- 
portion to the earnestness of our own faith, its 
tendency to accept a spiritual personality increases : 
and that the most vital and beautiful Christian 
temper rests joyfully in its conviction of the multitu- 
dinous ministry of living angels, infinitely varied in 
rank and power. You all know one expression of 
the purest and happiest form of such faith, as it exists 
in modern times, in Richter's lovely illustrations of 



220 The Crystal Rest. 

the Lord's Prayer. The real and living death angel 
girt as a pilgrim for journey, and softly crowned with 
flowers, beckons at the dying mother's door ; child- 
angels sit talking face to face with mortal children, 
among the flowers ; — hold them by their little coats, 
lest they fall on the stairs ; — whisper dreams of 
heaven to them, leaning over their pillows ; carry 
the sound of the church bells for them far through 
the air ; and, even descending lower in service, fill 
little cups with honey to hold out to the weary bee. 
By the way, Lily, did you tell the other children 
that story about your little sister, and Alice, and 
the sea ? 

Lily. I told it to Alice, and to Miss Dora. I 
don't think I did to anybody else. I thought it 
wasn't worth. 

L. We shall think it worth a great deal now, 
Lily, if you will tell it us. How old is Dotty, again? 
I forget. 

Lily. She is not quite three ; but she has such 
odd little old ways, sometimes. 

L. And she is very fond of Alice ? 

LlLY. Yes ; Alice was so good to her always ! 

L. And so when Alice went away ? 

Lily. Oh, it was nothing, you know, to tell 
about ; only it was strange at the time. 

L. Well ; but I want you to tell it. 



The Crystal Rest. 221 

Lily. The morning after Alice had gone, Dotty 
was very sad and restless when she got up, and 
went about, looking into all the corners, as if she 
could find Alice in them, and at last she came to 
me, and said, 'Is Alie gone over the great sea ? ' 
And I said, ' Yes, she is gone over the great, deep 
sea, but she will come back again some day.' Then 
Dotty looked round the room ; and I had just poured 
some water out into the basin ; and Dotty ran to it, 
and got up on a chair, and dashed her hands through 
the water, again and again ; and cried, ' Oh, deep, 
deep sea ! send little Alie back to me.' 

L. Isn't that pretty, children ? There's a dear 
little heathen for you ! The whole heart of Greek 
mythology is in that ; the idea of a personal being 
in the elemental power ; — of its being moved by 
prayer ; and of its presence everywhere, making the 
broken diffusion of the element sacred. 

Now, remember, the measure in which we may 
permit ourselves to think of this trusted and 
adored personality, in Greek, or in any other, my- 
thology, as conceivably a shadow of truth, will de- 
pend on the degree in which we hold the Greeks, 
or other great nations, equal or inferior, in privilege 
and character, to the Jews, or to ourselves. If we 
believe that the great Father would use the imagi- 
nation of the Jew as an instrument by which to exalt 



222 The Crystal Rest. 

and lead him ; but the imagination of the Greek 
only to degrade and mislead him ; if we can suppose 
that real angels were sent to minister to the Jews and 
to punish them ; but no angels, or only mocking 
spectra of angels, or even devils in the shapes of 
angels, to lead Lycurgus and Leonidas from desolate 
cradle to hopeless grave : — and if we can think that 
it was only the influence of spectres, or the teaching 
of demons, which issued in the making of mothers 
like Cornelia, and of sons like Cleobis and Bito, we 
may, of course, reject the heathen Mythology in 
our privileged scorn : but, at least, we are bound to 
examine strictly by what faults of our own it has 
come to pass, that the ministry of real angels among 
ourselves is occasionally so ineffectual, as to end in 
the production of Cornelias who intrust their child- 
jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better keeping of 
them ; and of sons like that one who, the other day, 
in France, beat his mother to death with a stick ; and 
was brought in by the jury, ' guilty, with extenuating 
circumstances.' 

May. Was that really possible ? 

L. Yes, my dear. I am not sure that I can lay 
my hand on the reference to it (and I should not 
have said ' the other day' — it was a year or two ago), 
but you may depend on the fact ; and I could give 
you many like it, if I chose. There was a murder 



The Crystal Rest. 223 

done in Russia, very lately, on a traveller. The 
murderess's little daughter was in the way, and found 
it out somehow. Her mother killed her, too, and 
put her into the oven. There is a peculiar horror 
about the relations between parent and child, which 
are being now brought about by our variously de- 
graded forms of European white slavery. Here is 
one reference, I see, in my notes on that story of 
Cleobis and Bito ; though I supposed I marked this 
chiefly for its quaintness, and the beautifully Chris- 
tian names of the sons ; but it is a good instance of 
the power of the King of the Valley of Diamonds* 
among us. 

In * Galignani ' of July 21-22, 1862, is reported a 
trial of a farmer's son in the department of the Yonne. 
The father, two years ago, at Malay le Grand, gave 
up his property to his two sons, on condition of being 
maintained by them. Simon fulfilled his agreement, 
but Pierre would not. The tribunal of Sens con- 
demns Pierre to pay eighty-four francs a year to his 
father. Pierre replies, ' he would rather die than 
pay it.' Actually, returning home, he throws him- 
self into the river, and the body is not found till 
next day. 

Mary. But — but — I can't tell what you would 



Note 



224 The Crystal Rest. 

have us think. Do you seriously mean that the 
Greeks were better than we are ; and that their 
gods were real angels ? 

L. No, my dear. I mean only that we know, in 
reality, less than nothing of the dealings of our 
Maker with our fellow-men ; and can only reason 
or conjecture safely about them, when we have sin- 
cerely humble thoughts of ourselves and our creeds. 

We owe to the Greeks every noble discipline in 
literature ; every radical principle of art ; and every 
form of convenient beauty in our household furniture 
and daily occupations of life. We are unable, our- 
selves, to make rational use of half that we have 
received from them : and, of our own, we have nothing 
but discoveries in science, and fine mechanical adapta- 
tions of the discovered physical powers. On the other 
hand, the vice existing among certain classes, both of 
the rich and poor, in London, Paris, and Vienna, could 
have been conceived by a Spartan or Roman of the 
heroic ages only as possible in a Tartarus, where 
fiends were employed to teach, but not to punish, 
crime. It little becomes us to speak contemptuously 
of the religion of races to whom we stand in such 
relations ; nor do I think any man of modesty or 
thoughtfulness will ever speak so of any religion, in 
which God has allowed one good man to die, 
trusting. 



The Crystal Rest. 225 

The more readily we admit the possibility of our 
own cherished convictions being mixed with error, the 
more vital and helpful whatever is right in them will 
become : and no error is so conclusively fatal as the 
idea that God will not allow us to err, though He has 
allowed all other men to do so. There may be doubt 
of the meaning of other visions ; but there is none 
respecting that of the dream of St. Peter ; and you 
may trust the Rock of the Church's Foundation for 
true interpreting, when he learned from it that ' in 
every nation, he that feareth God and worketh right- 
eousness, is accepted with Him.' See that you under- 
stand what that righteousness means ; and set hand 
to it stoutly : you will always measure your neigh- 
bours' creed kindly, in proportion to the substantial 
fruits of your own. Do not think you will ever get 
harm by striving to enter into the faith of others, and 
to sympathise, in imagination, with the guiding princi- 
ples of their lives. So only can you justly love them, 
or pity them, or praise. By the gracious effort you 
will double, treble — nay, indefinitely multiply, at once 
the pleasure, the reverence, and the intelligence with 
which you read : and, believe me, it is wiser and 
holier, by the fire of your own faith to kindle the 
ashes of expired religions, than to let your soul 
shiver and stumble among their graves, through the 
gathering darkness, and communicable cold. 

15 



226 The Crystal Rest. 

Mary {after some pause). We shall all like read- 
ing Greek history so much better after this ! but it 
has put everything else out of our heads that we 
wanted to ask. 

L. I can tell you one of the things ; and I might 
take credit for generosity in telling you ; but I have 
a personal reason — Lucilla's verse about the creation. 

DORA. Oh, yes — yes ; and its * pain together, 
until now.' 

L. I call you back to that, because I must warn 
you against an old error of my own. Somewhere 
in the fourth volume of ' Modern Painters,' I said 
that the earth seemed to have passed through its 
highest state : and that, after ascending by a series 
of phases, culminating in its habitation by man, it 
seems to be now gradually becoming less fit for that 
habitation. 

Mary. Yes, I remember. 

L. I wrote those passages under a very bitter 
impression of the gradual perishing of beauty from 
the loveliest scenes which I knew in the physical 
world ; not in any doubtful way, such as I might 
have attributed to loss of sensation in myself — but by 
violent and definite physical action ; such as the filling 
up of the Lac de Chede by landslips from the Rochers 
des Fiz ; — the narrowing of the Lake Lucerne by the 
gaining delta of the stream of the Muotta-Thal, which, 



The Crystal Rest. 227 

in the course of years, will cut the lake into two, as 
that of Brientz has been divided from that of Thun ; 
— the steady diminishing of the glaciers north of the 
Alps, and still more, of the sheets of snow on their 
southern slopes, which supply the refreshing streams 
of Lombardy ; — the equally steady increase of deadly 
maremma round Pisa and Venice ; and other such 
phenomena, quite measurably traceable within the 
limits even of short life, and unaccompanied, as it 
seemed, by redeeming or compensatory agencies. I 
am still under the same impression respecting the 
existing phenomena ; but I feel more strongly, every 
day, that no evidence to be collected within historical 
periods can be accepted as any clue to the great 
tendencies of geological change ; but that the great 
laws which never fail, and to which all change is 
subordinate, appear such as to accomplish a gradual 
advance to lovelier order, and more calmly, yet 
more deeply, animated Rest. Nor has this convic- 
tion ever fastened itself upon me more distinctly, 
than during my endeavour to trace the laws which 
govern the lowly framework of the dust. For, through 
all the phases of its transition and dissolution, there 
seems to be a continual effort to raise itself into a 
higher state ; and a measured gain, through the fierce 
revulsion and slow renewal of the earth's frame, in 
beauty, and order, and permanence. The soft white 



228 The Crystal Rest. 

sediments of the sea draw themselves, in process 
of time, into smooth knots of sphered symmetry ; 
burdened and strained under '.increase of pressure, 
they pass into a nascent marble ; scorched by fervent 
heat, they brighten and blanch into the snowy rock of 
Paros and Carrara. The dark drift of the inland river, 
or stagnant slime of inland pool and lake, divides, or 
resolves itself as it dries, into layers of its several 
elements ; slowly purifying each by the patient with- 
drawal of it from the anarchy of the mass in which it 
was mingled. Contracted by increasing drought, till 
it must shatter into fragments, it infuses continually 
a finer ichor into the opening veins, and finds in its 
weakness the first rudiments of a perfect strength. 
Rent at last, rock from rock, nay, atom from atom, 
and tormented in lambent fire, it knits, through the 
fusion, the fibres of a perennial endurance ; and, 
during countless subsequent centuries, declining, or, 
rather let me say, rising, to repose, finishes the 
infallible lustre of its crystalline beauty, under har- 
monies of law which are wholly beneficent, because 
wholly inexorable. 

( The children seemed pleased, but more inclined to 
think over these matters than to talk.) 

L. [after giving them a little time). Mary, I seldom 
ask you 'to read anything out of books of mine ; but 
there is a passage about the Law of Help, which I 



The Crystal Rest. 229 

want you to read to the children now, because it is of 
no use merely to put it in other words for them. You 
know the place I mean, do not you ? 

Mary. Yes {presently finding it) ; where shall I 
begin ? 

L. Here; but the elder ones had better look after- 
wards at the piece which comes just before this. 

Mary {reads) : 

'A pure or holy state of anything is that in which all its 
parts are helpful or consistent. The highest and first law of the 
universe, and the other name of life, is, therefore, "help." The 
other name of death is " separation." Government and co-opera- 
tion are in all things, and eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy 
and competition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of 
death. 

' Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, example we could 
take of the nature and power of consistence, will be that of the 
possible changes in the dust we tread on. 

' Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more 
absolute type of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp 
over-trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town. I 
do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal 
refuse ; but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime 
of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. 
That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay, (or 
brickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand, 
and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each 
other, and destroy reciprocally each other's nature and power : 
competing and fighting for place at every tread of your foot ; 
sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and 
soot meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole. Let us 



230 The Crystal Rest. 

suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that 
its elements gather together, like to like, so that their atoms 
may get into the closest relations possible. 

1 Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, 
it gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, 
and fit, with help of congealing fire, to be made into finest 
porcelain, and painted on, and be kept in kings' palaces. 
But such artificial consistence is not its best. Leave it still 
quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes, not 
only white, but clear ; not only clear, but hard ; not only clear 
and hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful 
way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing 
the rest. We call it then a sapphire. 

'Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar 
permission of quiet to the sand.^" It also becomes, first, a white 
earth ; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last 
arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which 
have the power of reflecting, not merely the blue rays, but the 
blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the greatest beauty in 
which they can be seen through any hard material whatsoever. 
We call it then an opal. 

' In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself 
white at first ; but, instead of being discouraged, tries harder 
and harder ; and comes out clear at last ; and the hardest thing 
in the world: and for the blackness that it had, obtains in 
exchange the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at 
once, in the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. 
We call it then a diamond. 

' Last of all, the water purifies or unites itself ; contented 
enough if it only reach the form of a dewdrop : but, if we 
insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it 
crystallises into the shape of a star. And, for the ounce of 
slime which we had by political economy of competition, we 



The Crystal Rest. 231 

have, by political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, 
and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow.' 

L. I have asked you to hear that, children, be- 
cause, from all that we have seen in the work and 
play of these past days, I would have you gain at 
least one grave and enduring thought. The seeming 
trouble, — the unquestionable degradation, — of th 
elements of the physical earth, must passively wait 
the appointed time of their repose, or their restora- 
tion. It can only be brought about for them by 
the agency of external law. But if, indeed, there 
be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving 
atoms ; — if, indeed, there is an eternal difference be- 
tween the fire which inhabits them, and that which 
animates us, — it must be shown, by each of us in 
his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but 
in the activity of our hope ; not merely by our 
desire, but our labour, for the time when the Dust 
of the generations of men shall be confirmed for 
foundations of the gates of the city of God. The 
human clay, now trampled and despised, will not be, 
— cannot be,- — knit into strength and light by acci- 
dents or ordinances of unassisted fate. By human 
cruelty and iniquity it has been afflicted ; — by 
human mercy and justice it must be raised : and, in 
all fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real 
message of creation, or of revelation, you may 



232 The Crystal Rest. 

assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to 
do that which your Lord has plainly required, — and 
content that He should indeed require no more of 
you, — than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk 
humbly with Him. 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 



Note I. 

Page 26. 

' That third pyramid of hers! 

Throughout the dialogues, it must be observed that ' Sibyl ' 
is addressed (when in play) as having once been the Cumaean 
Sibyl ; and ' Egypt ' as having been queen Nitocris, — the Cin- 
derella, and ■ the greatest heroine and beauty ' of Egyptian 
story. The Egyptians called her ' Neith the Victorious ' 
(Nitocris), and the Greeks ' Face of the Rose ' (Rhodope). 
Chaucer's beautiful conception of Cleopatra in the ' Legend 
of Good Women,' is much more founded on the traditions of 
her than on those of Cleopatra ; and, especially in its close, 
modified by Herodotus's terrible story of the death of Nito- 
cris, which, however, is mythologically nothing more than a 
part of the deep monotonous ancient dirge for the fulfil- 
ment of the earthly destiny of Beauty : ' She cast herself 
into a chamber full of ashes.' 

I believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained to have 
either built, or increased to double its former size, the third 
pyramid of Gizeh : and the passage following in the text 
refers to an imaginary endeavour, by the Old Lecturer and the 
children together, to make out the description of that pyramid 
in the 167th page of the second volume of Bunsen's ' Egypt's 
Place in Universal History' — ideal endeavour, — which ideally 



236 Notes. 

terminates as the Old Lecturer's real endeavours to the same 
end always have terminated. There are, however, valuable 
notes respecting Nitocris at page 210 of the same volume : 
but the 'Early Egyptian History for the Young,' by the 
author of ' Sidney Gray,' contains, in a pleasant form, as 
much information as young readers will usually need. 

Note II. 

Page 27. 

' Pyra?)iid of Asychis.' 

This pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower of Babel 
the shame, or vain glory, of being presumptuously, and first 
among great edifices, built with 'brick for stone.' This was 
the inscription on it, according to Herodotus : — 

' Despise me not in comparing me with the pyramids of 
stone ; for I have the pre-eminence over them, as far as 
Jupiter has pre-eminence over the gods. For, striking 
with staves into the pool, men gathered the clay which 
fastened itself to the staff, and kneaded bricks out of 
it, and so made me.' 

The word I have translated ' kneaded ' is literally ' drew ; ' in the 
sense of drawing, for which the Latins used ' duco ; ' and thus 
gave us our ' ductile ' in speaking of dead clay, and Duke, 
Doge, or leader, in speaking of living clay. As the asserted 
pre-eminence of the edifice is made, in this inscription, to rest 
merely on the quantity of labour consumed in it, this pyramid 
is considered, in the text, as the type, at once, of the base build- 
ing, and of the lost labour, of future ages ; so far at least as 
the spirits of measured and mechanical effort deal with it : 
but Neith, exercising her power upon it, makes it a type of 
the work of wise and inspired builders. 



Notes. 237 



Note III. 

Page 28. 

' The Greater Pthah! 

It -is impossible, as yet, to define with distinctness the personal 
agencies of the Egyptian deities. They are continually asso- 
ciated in function, or hold derivative powers, or are related to 
each other in mysterious triads ; uniting always symbolism of 
physical phenomena with real spiritual power. I have endea- 
voured partly to explain this in the text of the tenth Lecture : 
here, it is only necessary for the reader to know that the Greater 
Pthah more or less represents the formative power of order and 
measurement : he always stands on a four-square pedestal, ' the 
Egyptian cubit, metaphorically used as the hieroglyphic for 
truth ; ' his limbs are bound together, to signify fixed stability, 
as of a pillar ; he has a measuring-rod in his hand ; and at 
Philae, is represented as holding an egg on a potter's wheel ; 
but I do not know if this symbol occurs in older sculptures. 
His usual title is the 'Lord of truth.' Others, very beautiful; 
' King of the Two Worlds, of Gracious Countenance,' ' Super- 
intendent of the Great Abode,' etc., are given by Mr. Birch 
in Arundale's 'Gallery of Antiquities,' which I suppose is 
the book of best authority easily accessible. For the full 
titles and utterances of the gods, Rosellini is as yet the only 
—and I believe, still a very questionable — authority ; and Arun- 
dale's little book, excellent in the text, has this great defect, 
that its drawings give the statues invariably a ludicrous or ig- 
noble character. Readers who have not access to the originals 
must be warned against this frequent fault in modern illus- 
tration, (especially existing also in some of the painted casts 
of Gothic and Norman work at the Crystal Palace). It is 
not owing to any wilful want of veracity : the plates in 



238 Notes. 

Arundale's book are laboriously faithful : but the expressions 
of both face and body in a figure depend merely on empha- 
sis of touch ; and, in barbaric art, most draughtsmen empha- 
size what they plainly see — the barbarism : and miss condi- 
tions of nobleness, which they must approach the monument 
in a different temper before they will discover, and draw with 
great subtlety before they can express. 

The character of the Lower Pthah, or perhaps I ought rather 
to say, of Pthah in his lower office, is sufficiently explained in 
the text of the third Lecture : only the reader must be warned 
that the Egyptian symbolism of him by the beetle was not a 
scornful one ; it expressed only the idea of his presence in 
the first elements of life. But it may not unjustly be used, 
in another sense, by us, who have seen his power in new 
development ; and, even as it was, I cannot conceive that the 
Egyptians should have regarded their beetle-headed image of 
him, (Champollion, 'Pantheon,' pi. 12) without some occult 
scorn. It is the most painful of all their types of any bene- 
ficent power ; and even among those of evil influences, none 
can be compared with it, except its opposite, the tortoise- 
headed demon of indolence. 

Pasht (p. 27, line 2) is connected with the Greek Artemis, 
especially in her offices of judgment and vengeance. She 
is usually lioness-headed ; sometimes cat-headed ; her attributes 
seeming often trivial or ludicrous unless their full meaning is 
known : but the enquiry is much too wide to be followed here. 
The cat was sacred to her ; or rather to the sun, and secondarily 
to her. She is alluded to in the text because she is always the 
companion of Pthah (called ' the beloved of Pthah,' it may be 
as Judgment, demanded and longed for by Truth) ; and it may 
be well for young readers to have this fixed in their minds, 
even by chance association. There are more statues of 
Pasht in the British Museum than of any other Egyptian 
deity ; several of them fine in workmanship ; nearly all in 



Notes. 239 

dark stone, which may be, presumably, to connect her, as 
the moon, with the night ; and in her office of avenger, with 
grief. 

Thoth (p. 31, line 8) is the Recording Angel of Judgment ; 
and the Greek Hermes. Phre (line 12) is the Sun. 

Neith is the Egyptian spirit of divine wisdom ; and the 
Athena of the Greeks. No sufficient statement of her many 
attributes, still less of their meanings, can be shortly given ; but 
this should be noted respecting the veiling of the Egyptian 
image of her by vulture wings — that as she is, physically, the 
goddess of the air, this bird, the most powerful creature of 
the air known to the Egyptians, naturally became her symbol. 
It had other significations ; but certainly this, when in con- 
nection with Neith. As representing her, it was the most 
important sign, next to the winged sphere, in Egyptian sculp- 
ture; and, just as in Homer, Athena herself guides her heroes 
into battle, this symbol of wisdom, giving victory, floats over 
the heads of the Egyptian kings. The Greeks, representing 
the goddess herself in human form, yet would not lose the 
power of the Egyptian symbol, and changed it into an angel 
of victory. First seen in loveliness on the early coins of Syra- 
cuse and Leontium, it gradually became the received sign of 
all conquest, and the so-called ' Victory ' of later times ; which, 
little by little, loses its truth, and is accepted by the moderns 
only as a personification of victory itself, — not as an actual 
picture of the living Angel who led to victory. There is a 
wide difference between these two conceptions, — all the dif- 
ference between insincere poetry, and sincere religion. This 
I have also endeavoured farther to illustrate in the tenth 
Lecture ; there is however one part of Athena's character 
which it would have been irrelevant to dwell upon there ; yet 
which I must not wholly leave unnoticed. 

As the goddess of the air, she physically represents both its 
beneficent calm, and necessary tempest : other storm-deities (as 



240 Notes. 

Chrysaor and iEolus), being invested with a subordinate and 
more or less malignant function, which is exclusively their own, 
and is related to that of Athena as the power of Mars is 
related to hers in war. So also Virgil makes her able to wield 
the lightning herself, while Juno cannot, but must pray for the 
intervention of iEolus. She has precisely the correspondent 
moral authority over calmness of mind, and just anger. She 
soothes Achilles, as she incites Tydides ; her physical power 
over the air being always hinted correlatively. She grasps 
Achilles by his hair — as the wind would lift it — softly. 
1 It fanned his cheek, it raised his hair, 
Like a meadow gale in spring.' 
She does not merely turn the lance of Mars from Diomed ; but 
seizes it in both her hands, and casts it aside, with a sense of 
making it vain, like chaff in the wind ; — to the shout of Achilles, 
she adds her own voice of storm in heaven — but in all cases the 
moral power is still the principal one — most beautifully in that 
seizing of Achilles by the hair, which was the talisman of his 
life (because he had vowed it to the Sperchius if he returned in 
safety), and which, in giving at Patroclus' tomb, he, knowingly 
yields up the hope of return to his country, and signifies that 
he will die with his friend. Achilles and Tydides are, above 
all other heroes, aided by her in war, because their prevailing 
characters are the desire of justice, united in both with deep 
affections ; and, in Achilles, with a passionate tenderness, 
which is the real root of his passionate anger. Ulysses is 
her favourite chiefly in her office as the goddess of conduct 
and design. 

Note IV. 
Page 77. 
' Geometrical limitation! 
It is difficult, without a tedious accuracy, or without full illus- 
tration, to express the complete relations of crystalline struc- 
ture, which dispose minerals to take, at different times fibrous 



Notes. 241 

massive, or foliated forms ; and I am afraid this chapter will 
be generally skipped by the reader : yet the arrangement itself 
will be found useful, if kept broadly in mind ; and the tran- 
sitions of state are of the highest interest, if the subject is 
entered upon with any earnestness. It would have been vain 
to add to the scheme ot this little volume any account of 
the geometrical forms of crystals : an available one, though 
still far too difficult and too copious, has been arranged by 
the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, for Orr's » Circle of the Sciences ' ; 
and, I believe, the ' nets ' of crystals, which are therein given 
to be cut out with scissors, and put prettily together, will 
be found more conquerable by young ladies than by other 
students. They should also, when an opportunity occurs, be 
shown, at any public library, the diagram of the crystallisa- 
tion of quartz referred to poles, at p. 8 of Cloizaux's ' Manuel 
de Mineralogie ' : that they may know what work is ; and 
what the subject is. 

With a view to more careful examination of the nascent 
states of silica, I have made no allusion in this volume to 
the influence of mere segregation, as connected with the 
crystalline power. It has only been recently, during the 
study of the breccias alluded to in page 182, that I have 
fully seen the extent to which this singular force often 
modifies rocks in which at first its influence might hardly 
have been suspected ; many apparent conglomerates being 
in reality formed chiefly by segregation, combined with mys- 
terious brokenly-zoned structures, like those of some mala- 
chites. I hope some day to know more of these and several 
other mineral phenomena, (especially of those connected with 
the relative sizes of crystals) which otherwise I should have 
endeavoured to describe in this volume. 



16 



242 Notes. 

Note V. 

Page 164. 

*- St. Barbara' 

I would have given the legends of St. Barbara, and St. Thomas, 
if I had thought it always well for young readers to have every- 
thing at once told them which they may wish to know. They 
will remember the stories better after taking some trouble to 
find them ; and the text is intelligible enough as it stands. The 
idea of St. Barbara, as there given, is founded partly on her 
legend in Peter de Natalibus, partly on the beautiful photograph 
of Van Eyck's picture of her at Antwerp : which was some time 
since published at Lille. 

Note VI. 

Page 223. 

' King of the Valley of Diamonds.'' 

Isabel interrupted the Lecturer here, and was briefly bid to 
hold her tongue ; which gave rise to some talk, apart, after- 
wards, between L. and Sibyl, of which a word or two may be 
perhaps advisably set down. 

Sibyl. We shall spoil Isabel, certainly, if we don't mind : 
I was glad you stopped her, and yet sorry ; for she wanted so 
much to ask about the Valley of Diamonds again, and she has 
worked so hard at it, and made it nearly all out by herself. 
She recollected Elisha's throwing in the meal, which nobody 
else did. 

L. But what did she want to ask ? 

Sibyl. About the mulberry trees and the serpents ; we are 
all stopped by that. Won't you tell us what it means ? 

L. Now, Sibyl, I am sure you, who never explained yourself, 
should be the last to expect others to do so. I hate explaining 
myself. 



Notes. 243 

Sibyl. And yet how often you complain of other people for 
not saying what they meant. How I have heard you growl 
over the three stone steps to purgatory, for instance ! 

L. Yes ; because Dante's meaning is worth getting at ; but 
mine matters nothing : at least, if ever I think it is of any con- 
sequence, I speak it as clearly as may be. But you may make 
anything you like of the serpent forests. I could have helped 
you to find out what they were, by giving a little more detail, 
but it would have been tiresome. 

Sibyl. It is much more tiresome not to find out. Tell us, 
please, as Isabel says, because we feel so stupid. 

L. There is no stupidity ; you could not possibly do more 
than guess at anything so vague. But I think you, Sibyl, at 
least, might have recollected what first dyed the mulberry. 

Sibyl. So I did : but that helped little ; I thought of 
Dante's forest of suicides, too, but you would not simply 
have borrowed that? 

L. No. If I had had strength to use it, I should have stolen 
it, to beat into another shape ; not borrowed it. But that idea of 
souls in trees is as old as the world ; or at least, as the world of 
man. And I did mean that there were souls in those dark 
branches ; — the souls of all who had perished in misery through 
the pursuit of riches ; and that the river was of their blood 
gathering gradually, and flowing out of the valley. Then I 
meant the serpents for the souls of those who had lived care- 
lessly and wantonly in their riches ; and who have all their sins 
forgiven by the world, because they are rich : and therefore they 
have seven crimson-crested heads, for the seven mortal sins ; of 
which they are proud : and these, and the memory and report 
of them, are the chief causes of temptation to others, as 
showing the pleasantness and absolving power of riches ; so 
that thus they are singing serpents. And the worms are the 
souls of the common money-getters and traffickers, who do 
nothing but eat and spin : and who gain habitually by the 



244 Notes. 

distress or foolishness of others (as you see the butchers have 
been gaining out of the panic at the cattle plague, among 
the poor), — so they are made to eat the dark leaves, and 
spin, and perish. 

Sibyl. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who 
oppress the poor and lend money to governments to make 
unjust war, where are they ? 

L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with 
the gold ; and make the grave-dust of the valley. I believe so, 
at least, for no one ever sees those souls anywhere. 

(Sibyl ceases questioning^ 

Isabel {who has crept up to her side without any ones 
seeing). Oh, Sibyl, please ask him about the fire-flies ! 

L. What, you there, mousie ! No ; I won't tell either Sibyl 
or you about the fire-flies ; nor a word more about anything else. 
You ought to be little fire-flies yourselves, and find your way in 
twilight by your own wits. 

Isabel. But you said they burned, you know ? 

L. Yes : and you may be fire-flies that way too, some of you, 
before long, though I did not mean that.* Away with you, 
children. You have thought enough for to-day. 

* Sentence out of letter from May, (who is staying with Isabel just 
now at Cassel,) dated 15th June, 1877 : — 

" I am reading the Ethics with a nice Irish girl who is staying here, 
and she's just as puzzled as I've always been about the fire-flies, and 
we both want to know so much. — Please be a very nice old Lecturer, 
and tell us, won't you ? " 

Well, May, you never were a vain girl ; so could scarcely guess that 
I meant them for the light, unpursued vanities, which yet blind us 
confused among the stars. One evening, as I came late into Siena, 
the fire-flies were flying high on a stormy sirocco wind,— the stars them- 
selves no brighter, and all their host seeming, at moments, to fade as 
the insects faded. — Note to Second Edition, 







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